


Oleander

by Nhitori



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst, Multi, No Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2018-12-26 02:15:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 40,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12049209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nhitori/pseuds/Nhitori
Summary: Everyone says that whale songs are depressing, but Nathan Prescott knows the truth.They may sound sad, but they always have a happy ending.(Let's call this AU, "Max never got her time powers because Nathan fired blanks" and go from there.)





	1. You stood beside me when I was out of my mind

**Author's Note:**

> Two years ago, I wanted to write my own Nathan Prescott fic.  
> I guess I finally did? Comments are always appreciated!

"Listen, if you don't want me to go around telling everybody all about the shit I know about you, you'll meet me in the girls' bathroom at Blackwell after school. Right after classes let out, when everybody'd rather use the ones back at the dorms, yeah? Then we can work out an agreement."

Chloe's words echoed in his head. Chloe Price was... What could he even call her, what could he consider her? Calling her a disaster felt hypocritical, at least internally. Externally, he could call her whatever he damn well pleased, but when it came to actually defining her he found himself at a loss. She was a mistake he'd made, that much was certain.

Going for the photograph wasn't a mistake, he felt. Mark didn't want her, and told Nathan that he should practice on her, and he refused when sober but decided to try it out when drunk. The mistake was that he underestimated Chloe Price. That incident... (He wasn't going to do anything but photograph her, he wasn't, he wouldn't, he swore to nobody in particular) was the excuse that a girl like her needed to pick him out as the next target on her plate. That was her way, Rachel Amber had once told him with a chuckle on her lips. Chloe would screw anybody over as soon as she could come up with some justification for it.

Rachel seemed to admire that in her, and Nathan sort of did too, he had to admit. He did until now. Until he'd handed her the justification she needed, and he never knew what 'screwed over' meant when it came to Chloe Price. His mind ran a mile a minute trying to determine what it could be that she'd do to him, and he kept coming up with worse and worse situations. She could blackmail him, reveal about the photograph to his peers; that was his concern at first, because everyone already knew about the drug deals, and it wasn't like his father would be shocked to hear about the type of subjects he wanted to capture.

It wasn't like his father didn't know who was teaching him.

After the initial thought, however, his paranoia kicked into full gear. Chloe might bring a weapon with her, right? If he was uncooperative, which he expected was likely when it came down to the wire and his impulses spiraled out of control. How would he defend himself then? What if Chloe killed him? What if she decided to let Mark know about his failed photo attempt, and rather than let it slide, he decided that Nathan should be punished for his inability to emulate him?

With all the possibilities, Nathan couldn't sit still. He could never sit still, but that entire morning before school he paced his room, rearranging things. What could he do? He racked his brain for a solution, and his eyes fell on that box. That item. It had been a gift for his most recent birthday, given to him by Mark as some sort of show of trust. Take this gun, Nathan. I know you won't ever have the guts to use it against me.

He had the guts to bring it with him for self-defense, though. It was concealed easily enough, and Blackwell's campus begged an aesthetic which just couldn't allow for metal detectors to mar the perfect image of an art school. It would be so easy... He reached down, turned it over in his hands, then tucked it away. He wasn't especially knowledgeable on how guns worked, but just having one should be enough, right?

Yeah. With that decided, he left his dorm to walk over towards campus. He was trying to think if he could get anybody to help him. Mark? No, no way. Not him, not for this problem. The absolute worst case scenario was him learning about this and reacting badly, after all. David? David always asked if he was doing okay. David always cut him some slack, but David was also in the pocket of his father, and besides, didn't he have some connection to Chloe Price? Even if David was kind enough to him, he probably wouldn't take well to Nathan's expression of terror regarding his... Stepdaughter, that's what it was.

Kristine was in Brazil, that wasn't useful, and Victoria... He'd tell Victoria, but she was always busy in the mornings, always. He didn't want to bother her. She already listened to his problems so often, he didn't need to throw this at her too, he didn't need to-

"Nathan?" He was broken out of his thoughts by a voice. He knew that voice. Victoria. He was just thinking about her, "What's going on?" She gave him a concerned look, and he glanced down to see that in the process of his frantic mental ramblings, he'd managed to step right into and remain standing in a puddle which was likely the result of somebody dumping something out onto the ground, since it hadn't rained recently enough to produce one like this.

"...Got a lot on my mind," Nathan muttered, crossing his arms over his chest, but that only lasted for a moment before Victoria grabbed his wrist and pulled him over towards the side of the school, then pointed at a bit of the architecture which jutted out at windowsill-height.

"Sit down, okay?" Her tone was commanding, and he listened without hesitation. She rolled her eyes and reached into her purse, pulling out her makeup wipes. She crouched down and rubbed at his shoes with them, "It's a crime to subject shoes like these to that, Good God. What could possibly be so distracting?"

"I think Chloe Price wants to kill me," He answered, holding tight to the edge of the carved stone he perched on while Victoria furiously tried to work the mud out of his designer loafers.

"Oh?" Victoria raised an eyebrow, then looked up to show her disbelief in full, "What makes you think that? Chloe's just a washout punk who's obsessed with finding Rachel Amber because being gay for her was the only driving force in her life. She hasn't been relevant since 2011."

"There's at least one other driving force, and that's owing Frank a lot of money," Nathan looked back down at her, furrowing his brow, "She was at that party we had last week, and I may have screwed up a little more than usual while I was drunk, and she left me a really threatening voicemail, and-"

Victoria stood back up and stuck her hand out in a 'stop' sort of motion, "Slow down. One thing at a time. What exactly did you screw up more than usual?"

"Nothing super bad," Nathan shook his head in protest, "I was just trying to emulate my favorite photographer, so I wanted to get a picture of her when she wasn't totally conscious. That's all... But I think she thought I wanted to do something worse, and now she's going to kill me."

"Most girls would think that, yes," Victoria sighed, holding a hand to her own forehead, "Just how many drugs were at that party? Well, whatever. Chloe Price isn't going to kill you. She's just blackmailing you, you basically said it yourself. Give her what she wants."

"I don't want to give her what she wants!" Nathan protested with a sharp edge to his voice, then got a handle. He never blew up at Victoria, it was something which had just never happened and he doubted it ever would. Something about the lack of nonsense she fed him kept him from getting angry with her, "...I give everyone what they want. If I give in to Chloe Price next, how am I ever going to get any self-agency?"

Victoria nodded, "Good point," She clicked her tongue, "So I guess she might get a little violent if you say no, right? But whatever she's got to reveal about you, won't your daddy just pay Wells to forget it ever happened?"

"Yes," He nodded, scratching at the side of his neck with his right hand, "It's not dad I'm worried about, or Wells. And everybody knows better than to mess with me. Everyone but Chloe Price! If she figures out that the dirt she's got means nothing to me, I don't know what the Hell she'll do!"

"So," Victoria moved to sit next to him, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder with slow movements to avoid startling him at all, "What are you going to do about it?"

"I..." Nathan gave in, and pulled the gun out, "I grabbed this."

Victoria reached out and took it from him, nonplussed, "You sure did. Your dad buy you this too? Another bribe to keep you quiet?"

"Yes," Nathan lied. As far as Victoria knew, it was always his father and only his father.

"Well," Victoria investigated it, "Even if Chloe Price brings it down to kill or be killed, what are you going to do then? Kill her?"

"No!" Nathan shook his head, offended that Victoria would even suggest it, "I just thought, having it would scare her. If I took it out she'd back off!"

"Sure, yeah," Victoria nodded, "That'd work, but if that's your intention, why'd you load it?" She moved to remove the ammo from the gun, letting it fall unceremoniously to the ground, "How about this?"

"Shit, I forgot there were blanks," Nathan noted as Victoria handed him back the now mostly-harmless gun. With no bullets, it could maybe cause a small burn or a blunt force wound at worst if he resorted to pistol-whipping.

Victoria glared at him, "You forgot there were blanks. Genius move there. If I hadn't taken affront to seeing your ferragamos sitting in a mud stew, you could be on a one-way trip to prison this time tomorrow. I'd still suggest you avoid firing it? The intimidation sort of disappears if she realizes you're not packing firepower."

"Right," Nathan nodded, then stood back up. Victoria did similarly, avoiding the ammunition she'd dumped in the grass.

"I should get back to Taylor," She said, waving to him with a smirk, "I'll see you later, okay? I'll wait in my last class, till you get things with Chloe sorted out. Jefferson's, right?"

Nathan paused, then shook his head. Hanging out with Victoria in that classroom was fine between periods, but after school... After a confrontation? "Could we meet in your dorm? Or my dorm. Doesn't matter which, I just might want to go somewhere a little more private than school after I deal with this whole Chloe thing."

"I understand. I'll let you up," Victoria nodded, then walked back over to the front of the school to regroup with her friends. Nathan stayed where he was a bit longer, taking deep breaths. He had a plan of action now, and he was less afraid. He could at least make it through the day. He could make it through the class he had with Mark Jefferson early in the morning, and carry this feeling of 'okay' at least until lunch.

By the afternoon, he was losing it, but he tried to keep his grasp on the confidence he'd seized upon earlier. He could do this, he told himself even as he felt it slipping. Ten more minutes. Five more minutes. One more. Bell rang. To the bathroom. To face Chloe Price. He arrived before her, and started freaking out. He'd lost it, if only he'd held onto it a little longer, but he was panicking. Talking to himself. Worrying. Freaking.

And before he could get a handle on it again, she arrived. She appeared, like the devil straight out of Hell, and she was shouting right off the bat. Yelling so loud, he could hardly process or understand what she was saying. She needed to be quiet, to calm down a little so he could actually think. He was spouting off now, defensive, pissed off. Shut up, Chloe. Shut up.

Before he realized it, he'd drawn the gun on her. She hadn't even gotten physical, but she was taunting him, and being so loud, and treating him like the criminal he wasn't. As soon as he had it out, she became afraid of him, and he advanced, unable to keep control of himself. At this point, it was full-on outburst, and he wasn't even really angry at her or yelling about what she'd said anymore, he was just screaming at the entire world. At everybody who ever held him down and tried to control him, to force their ideas of his life on him.

Chloe didn't make the connection, and she was terrified. She pushed back against him, her fear giving way to fight or flight, and she could only fight when pinned like this. At the rough touch of her hand, Nathan felt himself rocked with involuntary movement, stumbling backwards as all of his fingers clenched, including the one on the trigger of that gun. It clicked.

That was all it did.

Clicked.

There was a palpable silence between them for a good moment, but the silence between Nathan and Chloe was not all that filled the room. There was sound. A third voice who'd been uninvolved previously, shouting, lunging from behind the last stall in the room, "No!" She shrieked, voice full of grief, then halted when she noticed both of them were staring at her.

Both of them. Chloe and Nathan. Chloe, unharmed. Chloe. Now that she could see her face straight on, she recognized her, and she was even more confused. Max Caulfield... Did not exactly know what a gunshot was supposed to sound like, but she'd reacted on what she saw. She spoke again, "...Chloe?"

Nathan took the opening he had and stuffed the gun back into his inner jacket pocket, dashing out of the bathroom to leave the two of them behind. Chloe took a few moments to breathe before she mirrored the question, "Max?"

"What's going on?" Max questioned, looking to the door, then back to Chloe, "Why did Nathan Prescott almost shoot you? What were you talking about?"

"Nice of you to tell me you're back in Arcadia Bay, Max," Chloe's words were sarcastic, but her voice was shaking and uncertain as she rubbed her hands against her arms, a full shiver racking her, "Thought I could get some cash out of our local rich bitch as compensation for what he did to me, but I guess he's even more fucked up than I thought..."

Max frowned, looking away, "I didn't know how to start or what to say. It's not like I've been here very long, anyway. I arrived when the term started here at Blackwell. What did Nathan... do to you?"

Chloe tried to shake off her feeling of unease, but it lingered, keeping her muscles tense and her face pulled into a wary grimace, "There was this party. He drugged me, I think he was trying to get nudes or something, because when I woke up the fucker was looming over me with this camera. Figured that was worth at least two hundred bucks... Guess not. Guess it's worth a bullet to the gut."

"Chloe..." Max sighed, then held her arms out, "I promise, I'm here for you. If... If you want me to be, that is. I'm so sorry I wasn't."

\----------------

Victoria waited in her dorm for Nathan. She lay on her bed, phone held high above her face as she texted Zach some less-than-wholesome things. She was bored. This was boring. Victoria found her love life was often like that. She would fall for some new boy, but by the time they were exchanging sexy texts she would be sending 'I'm fingering myself just thinking of you' while she sat eating junk food in her pajamas, watching sitcoms and not the least bit turned on. It was as if she was unattracted to reciprocation. Well, that wasn't it and she knew it. It was the disconnect.

The interests had to line up. She couldn't get into sex with a guy she only wanted for his body if he expected they'd grow old and have toddlers by a picket fence together, and she couldn't stay into a guy who only claimed to have romantic interest because he wanted to get in her pants. It was rare she found somebody she really wanted both from. When she did. it wasn't easy to get them. Mark Jefferson, for example.

Rachel Amber was the only student Victoria knew who had been able to tempt that man from remaining a model teacher who would never dream of a relationship with his students. She was concerned that Kate Marsh was next in line, ahead of her for some reason. She had ammunition, but she was holding onto it. It seemed a little too much to do to her, when she knew that Kate wasn't conscious of what she was doing at the time. There were drugs at that party. Still, she wanted... Mark Jefferson.

Sometimes, she didn't want to abide by her moral compass, and just take what she wanted from life. What she wanted. She wanted to be with Mark, and she wanted for Nathan to be okay. She wanted to become someone important and beloved. She wanted to go from old money to new money, to be a self-made woman. Was that so much to ask?

She stopped these thoughts when she heard a knock on her door. It was unsteady, and she groaned to herself. Of course things hadn't gone smoothly for him, they never did. She stood up, opened the door, and gestured him inside. As soon as she'd closed the door behing him, he wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her shoulder as his body was racked by a sharp, rough sob.

She only stood there for a moment before she brought her own arms up to embrace him, leaving gentle pats on his back. He was getting her cashmere wet, but she couldn't find it in her to care about the damage he was doing to her fashion. It was a long while before he could speak, and when he did, it was a cry that she could only describe as one of agony, "I could have killed her-"

Victoria didn't ask him to clarify, just holding him until he felt he could explain. She'd become skilled in the art of keeping calm in the face of mental breakdowns. Eventually, Nathan explained between labored breaths, "I freaked out, and she pushed me, and I had a spasm and pulled the trigger... I could have killed her, if you hadn't taken the bullets out... G-God, I'm getting sick imagining if that same thing had happened with a loaded gun!"

"Shh, it's okay," Victoria soothed him, pulling away from the hug to look him in the eyes, "That didn't happen, did it? And I never would have let it. I would have noticed something was off about you at some point in the day, and everything would still be fine. It's all fine."

"I could have murdered somebody, by accident..." Nathan muttered, his posture limp with his head hung forward as he spoke in horror at himself. He always talked tough, but he thought that taking a life was something he wasn't truly capable of, "My dad was right about me all along..."

"Sean Prescott was never right about a thing and we both know it," Victoria scolded, then laid a hand against his cheek, "Yes, that's the truth. You could have. Anybody could. I could too, you know. Kate Marsh could, Rachel Amber could have. Even straight-laced twee hipster Max Caulfield could kill somebody without ever meaning to."

"...Max," Nathan gasped suddenly, both of his hands shooting to his chest, "She was there. She saw me. She thinks that I tried to kill someone- Chloe thinks so too, Victoria... That's two testimonies, I don't know if I can bounce back from something like this!"

"Look at me, Nathan," Victoria commanded, bringing her other hand up as well to make him look her in the eyes. His breathing slowed as she took control, the eye contact calming when he could see her genuine compassion reflected, "We will get through this. You own this town, that's the truth, it always has been. Your daddy's got Wells in his pocket, and the police force too. They belong to him, that's the one thing we have to be grateful to him for. All you did was pull the trigger on an empty gun, nobody can get you on that. You, Nathan Prescott? It would take a dead body to put you away, and that's never going to happen."

Nathan had to admit, she was right. He nodded, and leaned his forehead against hers, "...Thank you."

"Don't thank me. My options are to give you comfort well enough to calm you down, or listen to you bawl for another hour. Anybody would take the former," Victoria brushed off his gratitude, moving her hands from his cheeks down to his neck, "Do you think you'll be okay to go back to your dorm tonight, or do we need to hide you under my bed again?" 

Nathan took a few more breaths, and offered her a weak smile, "I should be fine to head back before sunset. We have a little more time, though. Want to watch something?"

"Depends on what something is," Victoria laughed, now dropping her hands to walk away and turn on her television, "I don't want to watch quality television after a day like that... Nature documentary, or unfunny teencom?"

Nathan screwed up his nose and faked annoyance, "Nature documentaries are quality television! And I don't feel like trying to process intelligent programming either, so bad teencom is my vote."

"Great," Victoria nodded, grabbing the remote as she sat down on her bed, patting beside her for Nathan to sit down. He joined her, and she slung one arm over his shoulders as she went searching for something which fit the genre they'd decided on, "Hm... Good Luck Charlie seems like our best bet, doesn't it?"

Nathan nodded in agreement, and they spent the next two hours watching it before the sun started to set and he needed to head back to his own dorm. Rules weren't especially enforced, but there were faculty members who checked to make sure nothing odd was going on after hours. They were easy to fool, but it was easier just to follow the rules.

Besides, Nathan felt he'd been stabilized enough that he could stand to be alone overnight. He bid Victoria goodbye and goodnight, then returned to his own dorm building and room. He shut the door behind himself, and looked around. This space was his own, but Victoria's room felt more like a home than this did. This was what happened when he was left to his own devices.

He didn't know how to make a place worth living in. Everything about this room was technically fine, it looked fine, it was... fine. That was it. No life, not even a real reflection of himself as far as he was concerned. It was just the type of art he liked, all set up, organized to a point. He sat down on his bed and stared off at the wall, at a particular item on the wall.

June 6th, 2006.

Nathan Prescott is Officially the Best Son in The World.

He sighed and turned away from it, lying on his side with all his clothes still on, even his shoes. He didn't feel like getting changed at all. June 6th. 2006. That was, he was certain, the very last time that his father had seen him as a son. He'd been ten, turning eleven in August.

Growing out of naivety, growing out of letting his outbursts be explained away with 'boys will be boys' and 'spoiled little brat'. When he began to "grow up", and his behavior didn't improve at all, it became clear to him and everyone around him that he wasn't going to get any better in that respect. He went beyond spoiled to expired. Sean Prescott found another use for him.

Nathan took a deep breath. He needed to stop thinking about this, thinking about his entire situation. Victoria was the only one who knew about his dad, even Kristine didn't know about that. It would hurt her to know. And that was the same reason that Victoria, while closest to knowing the full truth, still didn't have it. She was in love with Mark Jefferson, so why would he ever tell her?

Would it hurt Victoria too much to know? Or would it hurt Nathan too much to tell her, filled with the fear that she would think he was lying out of her blind devotion to the man? He hated keeping anything from the girl he considered his best friend, but he had no scale on which to measure if Victoria would place their friendship above the idolization she harbored towards that man?

He banished the thoughts. Think about other things. That was hard to do in this room he'd put together. For all that he enjoyed the art, it wasn't good for keeping positive. Death and pain filled the photographs and drawings that he collected, and he admired the raw expression that they represented. When he wanted to avoid spiraling into depression, it didn't help to see dead things, didn't help to see things in pain.

He shut his eyes, but his ears were ringing. He knew that was a warning sign. He couldn't catch a break today, and the ringing would morph soon enough into sounds much more unpleasant than a simple high-pitched note. Frustrated, he sat back up. Kicked off his shoes, pulled off his jacket, and retrieved his phone and earbuds from the pocket before he tossed it to the floor.

He lay back down, grabbing the end of his phone charger with just enough foresight to make sure he wouldn't wake up with a useless phone the next morning. He picked out his calming playlist, and let it fill his ears to overcome the ringing and anything else which wanted to whisper as he drifted off to sleep.

\--------

Max saw it. Max saw, when she arrived back at the building just before sunset, how Nathan was leaving Victoria's room. She knew they were friends, more or less in charge of the Vortex Club together, but were they co-conspirators on this matter too? Max's first instinct had been to believe and comfort Chloe, but she couldn't stop thinking about the conversation between her and Nathan before that.

Catching up with Chloe had taken up quite a bit of her afternoon, and it was nice, but there was distance between them now. Distance called time, and distance called Rachel Amber. Chloe's friend after Max had left, and she sounded amazing. A more spectacular friend than Max could ever hope to be, and she was glad that Chloe found somebody like that in her absence, but she'd filled in a gap that Max couldn't step back into now.

Chloe wanted to act like they could just pick up where they'd left off, and Max wanted that too, but it was too hard to just accept that Chloe wanted her back in her life. "I really want you to meet Rachel" was what stuck most. Max couldn't fill the void, because as far as Chloe was concerned, there wasn't one. Rachel Amber was her best friend, even when missing, and Max had become second fiddle as the childhood friend. She was okay with that.

She couldn't help but feel, however, that maybe the reason Chloe wasn't holding anything against her was because of what she'd seen in the bathroom. If Chloe started going at her for the lack of contact over the years, maybe she was afraid that Max would use the prior conversation as ammo to strike back. She believed what Chloe had said about Nathan, but she'd also been really aggressive.

Like she had more at stake than recompense for being a victim of his creepiness; like she needed the money for something, and she thought that if she kicked up enough fuss, Nathan would give it to her. Max had learned at a breakneck pace that since she'd moved away, Chloe had let her troublemaking tendencies go wild, even getting kicked out of Blackwell for it, and while she had no good will towards Nathan Prescott, she did have to wonder if she really knew the whole story.

With this in mind, she didn't say a thing to Nathan when she saw him leaving Victoria's room. She passed by her door soon after, and noticed that she was watching him go, though she screwed up her face and slammed the door as soon as she realized Max had seen her. She returned to her own room, and sat down at her desk, checking her emails and social media. She was supposed to return that USB full of movies to Warren today; She'd totally, accidentally bailed on him. She would apologize tomorrow, and explain that there were some strange circumstances at play.

Somehow, Max knew that there was more going on than what she knew, and she decided to try and figure it out by stalking Nathan and Victoria's social media pages. She didn't find much, not what she was looking for anyway. Nothing which would suddenly enlighten her to any greater truth, just a bunch of pictures. Mostly artsy ones from each of them, though they also posted 'party shots', both posed and candid, nothing meant to have artistic value but just to document good times.

Vortex Club parties. Still, Max did pick up on one thing from the photos. Nathan and Victoria were almost always right next to each other in the shots, close by. There were a few where they were separated, obviously, but more often than not they seemed to be seen together. Way back on Nathan's page, she found a picture of him and Victoria posing for a selfie with Rachel Amber, as she could assume by her visual similarity to the photo on the missing girl posters. Rachel was holding the phone it was taken on, and had a bottle of vodka in her other hand, not seeming to care at all that she was documenting her own underaged drinking.

That wasn't even new, though. Chloe did mention that Rachel got along with everybody in the school, no matter who they were, so it wasn't shocking that she was friends with Nathan and Victoria too. Max was left feeling like all she'd been able to glean was that those two, the king and queen of Blackwell, were genuinely close. She decided that in the morning, she'd try to investigate some more.

Jesus, when did she become so nosy? She never cared about what the other students at Blackwell were doing before this week, and she'd absolutely never cared at her previous school. Something about meeting up with Chloe again, and hearing what she thought of everybody, left Max craving more information. Left her wanting to know if Chloe's ideas about these people were correct, or if her opinions were just another result of her newfound rebellious streak.

With her thoughts in order and her mind made up, Max changed into pajamas, went into the bathroom to brush her teeth, then returned to her room and crawled under the covers to get some sleep.


	2. I broke the glass and you were there to sweep it aside

Kate Marsh didn't feel like playing violin that morning.

She hated that she didn't want to, but she just couldn't bring herself to do it. She hadn't been okay. Not since that party. Part of her wanted to blame Nathan Prescott, of course, but she wasn't so certain it was his fault that she'd assign blame blindly. That wasn't the right thing to do. She knew it was him who brought the drugs to the party, but...

Though he didn't follow through on it, he did offer to bring her to the hospital. She knew that much. Her memory of that night was so foggy, even from the beginning. She'd had a bit of wine, not much at all, but since she had only ever had a few sips at church before, she was quite a lightweight. Even so, she knew that the party, and whatever its aftermath was, none of it was good. She remained shaken by the loose memories.

If she could only find something concrete, somehow get ahold of something which confirmed anything which happened to be true, maybe she could begin to move on. It was the not knowing which bothered her most. After a while, she got up, and went to the communal bathroom to get a shower. She was still the first one there in the morning, usually getting up earlier than anybody else, even with her lethargy that particular morning.

She always made sure, since the showers were only curtains. It wasn't that she was that afraid somebody would want to see her naked or anything, but modesty compelled her to avoid that possibility. She washed her hair quickly, then put her clothes on before stepping back out into the bathroom. As she approached the sink, she looked up and saw the door opening.

"...Kate," Victoria noted, stepping over to the sink beside the one she was using, "Are you always up this early?"

"Yes..." Kate nodded, holding the sides of the sink tight in her hands, "Why are you awake now too?"

Victoria shrugged, wandering to the showers now, "Can't I wake up when I want to?"

"You never have before," Kate mumbled, "Is the thing... I was just wondering if you had a reason to be up especially early this morning."

"If you must know," Victoria rolled her eyes as she pulled the curtain to the side, continuing to talk as she entered the shower, "I want to be ready early so I can be sure to intercept a certain classmate leaving the boys' dorm room. A friend of mine didn't have a particularly good day yesterday, and I in all my wisdom, seem to think that it's my responsibility to make sure he was okay overnight."

"Er... Who?" Kate questioned, though she expected she already knew the answer.

"I'm not about to give you any details. I'm not in the habit of gossiping about people I actually care about," Victoria waved it off, "Nathan Prescott, and I will most certainly not be informing you of what caused his day to be bad."

"So bad things happen to him, too..." Kate noted quietly, mostly to herself, but Victoria still managed somehow to hear her over the sound of the shower spray.

"Are you kidding? His life's nothing but bad things," Victoria snapped, then realized she'd let too much slip, "...Please, don't tell him that I told you that."

"I won't, but..." Kate spoke up now, "I'm glad that you did. I was on the edge of hating him, but if he has a hard time too, then I'm sure I can find it in my heart to forgive him..."

"Forgive him? What for?" Victoria questioned. What did he do now?

"I went to that vortex club party last week..." Kate looked around the room, keeping an eye on the door to make sure nobody else who didn't need to know overheard her, "And I think he drugged me. He also said he was going to bring me to the hospital and didn't..."

"So you didn't really go off the deep end and cut loose," Victoria noted with a heavy sigh, "That's strange, though. Nathan already told me about something else which went wrong at that party. It seems strange that two things would happen..."

"Well, maybe it wasn't him who drugged me. It could have been one of the other guys," Kate shrugged, "How am I supposed to know? But I'm pretty clear on getting into his car."

"Kate Marsh," Victoria started, her tone suddenly flat and serious, "I want you to tell me something. Are you, or are you not, romantically interested in Mark Jefferson?"

Kate froze. She stayed silent for a while until she was able to come up with a response, "I'm not, why would you ever ask me that?"

Victoria stepped back out of the shower, still pulling her shirt on as she did. Once she'd smoothed down the front, she looked to Kate with her eyebrows raised, "Because he's interested in you, and you're always helping him out around the classroom after school. Both of those factors really raise some flags toward there being something between you."

Kate just stared back at Victoria, shaking her head, "No... There's no way. He's a teacher, I can't imagine that he would be interested in his students like that."

"Oh, right, you're part of the integrated student plan. You didn't know anything about Rachel Amber, and I guess you don't stick your nose around often enough to have heard about it," Victoria groaned, leaning forward towards the mirror to start applying makeup, "The two of them were absolutely involved."

"Oh my," Kate turned her eyes back to the sink, "I really didn't think he was the type... And didn't everyone love Rachel Amber? Why would she do such a thing?"

"Such a thing?" Victoria questioned, grimacing, but continued, "It's because he's a young, hot, and talented teacher. I can't imagine who wouldn't want to be with him, but I suppose if I had to imagine someone, you fit the bill."

"I'm not sure that being attracted to authority figures is exactly a common thing," Kate mumbled, trying to think if she'd ever even entertained the thought of kissing a teacher, or a priest, or anybody like that, "But I guess the sort of things I used to think were uncommon really are usual around here..."

"Rude," Victoria sighed, but then looked to Kate, staring at her for a long while, "It's funny, Kate. All this time, I've been thinking of you like you're anybody else at this school, but you're a totally different type of person. I guess the bullshit you say comes from a sincere place..." Before Kate had a chance to respond, she continued, "Hey, you said you don't remember a lot about the party, right?"

"Basically nothing," Kate shook her head, sighing as she brought both hands up to her forehead, "I feel like, if I could just get a little bit of clarity, then it would be better... I want to know why I felt so unclean when I woke up..."

"I can help you with that," Victoria finished her makeup, then pinned her hair back. She actually always let it air-dry after a quick toweling, since she had it short enough that it never stayed wet very long, and she didn't want the damage that blow-drying brought if she didn't need it, "If you promise that you won't use it against Nathan Prescott."

"I wouldn't tell anybody," Kate whispered, holding her hands in close to herself, "I couldn't. I just... I just want to know."

"Here," Victoria pulled her phone from her makeup bag, and in no time at all, sent a message to Kate. Kate had brought her phone into the bathroom with her, but by accident; she didn't realize until the notification went off, and was glad that she'd kept her pajamas dry. She pulled her phone from the armful of clothing, and found that the message Victoria sent her included a video.

 

\-----------------

When Max woke up, she was loathe to avoid hitting snooze, but she did it. She sat up right away, rubbed her eyes, and groaned at the time. Still, she acted, because she had a plan. It was probably not the best plan, but it was a plan nonetheless, and she was going to act on it. She had to be prepared for when Victoria went to shower.

To her surprise, that when was right now. As soon as she opened her door, she saw Victoria heading toward the bathroom. That was extra early, so she was glad to have overcompensated. She immediately made her way towards Victoria's room, looking both ways to be sure nobody was looking before she pushed the door open. Nobody ever locked their rooms during the fifteen to thirty minutes they spent in the bathroom in the morning.

Somehow, it didn't feel wrong to do this, it didn't feel criminal to go snooping around in Victoria's room. It was a criminal act, of course, but it wasn't the wrong thing to do, because she was doing it for good reason. She wanted to learn more about Victoria Chase, to come to a better understanding of the type of person that she was. Seeing how much Chloe had changed made her realize something.

It wasn't like this new Chloe had completely taken over the old Chloe and discarded her, the Chloe who Max had known growing up was still under there. So it wasn't out of the question that underneath the current Victoria and Nathan were other versions of them just waiting to be discovered.

So Max snooped. She snooped, and explored, but she didn't find any of what she was really looking for. Admittedly, she did learn more about Victoria as a person, but somehow, she wasn't looking for that. It was good to know, but she was searching for something else, something more important. Something to explain what she'd seen in the bathroom. She took one last sweeping look around the room, when her phone buzzed in her pocket.

She pulled it out, to find a message from Chloe asking to meet up at the Two Whales Diner. Well, she certainly had time before her first class, so she sent back a text saying that she'd be there soon and went to get ready. So the diner was still around; that was good to know. Breakfasts there with Chloe, before she left Arcadia Bay, had always been fun times.

Max arrived at the diner before Chloe did, so she just took a look around. It was a small restaurant, in a very casual setting. It had a traditional jukebox, which she messed around with, then noticed that there was a table full of local police officers by the door. She wandered over, and gave a small wave, "Hey officers. Thanks for your service to the town."

"Huh?" One of them, his nametag reading 'Berry', looked up, then offered her a smile, "Hey, I think that may be the first time one of you Blackwell kids ever appreciated police presence."

"I can't see why I wouldn't. It's a tough job, and this is a small town. You don't really have the wiggle room to be unnecessarily cruel," Max noted, crossing her arms, "I appreciate you trying to keep us safe. Teens can do dumb things... I'm Max Caulfield. I grew up here, then moved away, and now I'm back. Uh, I was kind of wondering if you could tell me anything about Rachel Amber?"

"Rachel Amber..." Officer Berry sighed, staring into his coffee, "We can only assume she's dead now, or she took off far away from Arcadia Bay. It isn't surprising, since she was always a troublemaker, but I still wish we could have at least gotten some assurance that she was safe, instead of needing to just say 'we give up' like we didn't even try."

"I heard that a lot of people expected she would run away from this town, but I also heard that a lot of people thought she'd have said goodbye to them first," Max said, rubbing her arms, "Do you think... Wherever she is, she's okay?"

"I'd like to hope so, Miss Caulfield," Berry nodded, "I really do."

Max didn't have anything else to say, so she took a deep breath, then walked away to claim a booth to sit in. She waited another ten minutes before Chloe showed up, climbing into the booth with a grin on her face, "Mad Max! Glad you could make it. So, now that you're here, I was thinking... I really want you to meet Rachel. So I gotta kick it into gear, looking for her. And I want your help."

"My help? I'd... Love to, Chloe, but what exactly do you expect me to be able to do?" Max questioned, fidgeting with her hands on the table in front of herself, "I mean, you've already made it pretty clear that you spit in the face of the law, so if you've already searched all over for her with that on your side, what could somebody like me do to help?"

"You've got ins is what, Max," Chloe jabbed her finger into the table, a wild and enthusiastic look in her eyes, "There's nobody and nothing left at Blackwell for me, but there was everything there for Rachel. And there's people there who'll talk to you, and you can get into the dorms, and I bet if you looked up from your camera just a little bit, you could pick up on all sorts of gossip. The one place I couldn't investigate thoroughly enough to be satisfied was always Blackwell Academy. But you can."

"You say that as if I'm popular there," Max chuckled nervously, scratching her back with one hand, "I mean, I'm on friendly terms with some people, but I'm only really friends with Kate and Warren. Kate's new like I am, and not the gossiping type. And I seriously doubt Warren would know much of anything about social goings-on."

That reminded her, she still needed to return that flash drive. After school.

"None of that matters, Max! What matters is that you can be at that school without my step-douche reminding you that you shouldn't really be on campus! You can totally snoop all around. Look, I can even swipe David's keys, and if _you_ get caught sneaking about at night, you've got excuses that I just never could use!" Chloe continued pressing the matter.

"Well..." Max did want to learn the truth about Rachel Amber, and to find out if there was anything Chloe hadn't told her, or didn't know about what happened between her and Nathan Prescott, "I guess it couldn't hurt to investigate a little bit."

"Now we're cooking with fire!" Chloe exclaimed, finally leaning back on the bench seat, "We'll dig up the truth, yet. They should make a tv show about us, you know. We'll be a picture-perfect TV detective duo, right?"

"Very funny," Max rolled her eyes at the photograph pun, "And hey, if I get in trouble, maybe that'll be the exact excuse I need to give Mr. Jefferson on why I didn't enter his Everyday Heroes contest. Suspended Max can't go winning any contests with a big reward like that, after all... As if I'd win in the first place, but you know."

"Say anything to get adults off your back, am I right?" Chloe joked, "But for cereal, why aren't you entering? That totally seems like your scene. You came all the way back here to attend Blackwell, so you must have wanted to take advantage of it."

"I thought that I did, but... I haven't been here that long yet. I'm just starting to get settled in, so I think it would be weird if I just entered a contest right after arriving at school. People already think I'm kind of pretentious, after all," Max mumbled, staring down at the table, "I think the better thing to do right now is to help you investigate what happened to Rachel Amber. Um... Officer Berry said she got into trouble pretty often. I'm guessing you've already followed up on any of those leads."

Chloe shrugged, "Well, for the most part, but I guess there's still one stone left unturned. Her biggest foray into that 'troublemaking' realm was with one particular drug dealer. Well, call him a supplier. He sells to the dealers, mostly. I owe him money, so he won't talk to me in any non-sarcastic manner."

"I'm just going to assume what you owe him is for weed and not anything worse..." Max sighed, holding a hand to her forehead, "And that's why you were trying to get money out of Nathan, right? To pay this guy back?"

"Bingo, Max," Chloe nodded, pointing at her, "If I can settle our debt, then Frank'll have to tell me what he knows about Rachel. Well... If he knows anything, I guess," She sighed, looking away, "I kind of have to think that if Frank had any info on her disappearance, he would have told somebody who'd take it public, or at least to the police. He can be a decent guy _sometimes_."

"And you think helping Rachel Amber would have been one of those times?" Max asked, then looked up at the ceiling, "Well, even if he has nothing on her disappearance, he'd have some information about her that he kept from you, right? And... you said he was a supplier, huh?"

"Yeah, why?" Chloe questioned.

"Well, maybe we can't blackmail Nathan about what happened, but he had to get those drugs somewhere, right? Maybe we can hold it over his head that what happened was indirectly his fault," Max offered.

Chloe shook her head with a heavy groan, "No, that would never work. I said he's a decent guy sometimes, not that he isn't a total asshole. Once the drugs are out of his hands, it doesn't matter to him what anybody does with them. It's a business. You think that the line cook at McDonald's cares if you eat the quarter pounder or use it to pleasure yourself? Of course not. That's not how business works."

"Weird example to use, but I guess I get it," Max shrugged, "Well, I still think we should talk to him. That's the only lead we might have which actually, you know, relates to Rachel Amber. I think all I could pull off at Blackwell would be checking out some of the other dorms."

"Fine, we'll talk to Frank as soon as we're done here," Chloe glared at her, "If you're going to make me deal with him like this, Max, the least you'll do for me is skip school to do it with me."

"Okay, I can do that," Max nodded. She hadn't been absent at all yet, and so many people just played hooky all the time. Attendance didn't count towards grades in most of the classes, as long as everything was turned in on time. Blackwell was aimed at a particular breed of student after all, and expecting them to always attend class went a bit off-message.

\------------

Victoria arrived at the door for Nathan's dorm in no time at all. The doors were locked at night, but as soon as somebody from inside opened it, they would be free for anyone till they were manually closed up again. A measure against students locking themselves out, but also very convenient for Victoria.

Nathan's door was locked, meaning he was likely still asleep. Good. She wouldn't have wanted him to be awake this early, after a day like yesterday; but she needed to make sure she could see him as soon as he was able to speak with her. She just stood in the hallway outside his door, messing around on her phone. Nobody saw her there, or if they did notice, didn't see anything odd about her presence.

Eventually, Nathan opened his door, only to jump backwards at the sight of Victoria waiting right there for him. He was only surprised for a moment, though he still questioned, "Victoria? What are you doing here?"

She clicked her tongue, "Isn't it obvious? I needed to make sure you got through the night without hurting yourself. Or drugging any more girls. Nathan, I need to talk to you about Kate Marsh. Step back inside," She looked him over, furrowing her brow, "Did you sleep in your clothes? Nathan, if you were going to fall into this state of disrepair as soon as you left, you really should have stayed with me."

Nathan stayed silent, but stepped to the side so Victoria could walk into his room, closing the door behind her. He sat down on his bed and sighed, holding a hand to his head, "You know what I did at that party, Victoria. Kate Marsh has only been to one Vortex Club party. I wouldn't have drugged her, I was focused on Chloe..." He couldn't keep from fidgeting as he explained, voice shaky.

"I know that much," Victoria noted, sitting beside him as she crossed her legs, "You are on that video I took, you know. Spaced out. Drunk, and..." She frowned, leaning her head on his shoulder, "You only use those things on yourself when you're alone, or just with me, right?"

Nathan froze, then pulled his arms in close to himself and leaned into Victoria himself, "Parties are a dangerous place to be on drugs. I don't give a shit if other people want to pay me to do that, but it scares me. What video?"

"I took a video when Kate was on drugs. Back when I thought that we were just seeing a new side of her, before I found out that there was no way she would have taken anything on her own," Victoria explained, pulling out her phone. She still had the video right there in her gallery app, since she'd just sent it to Kate. She hit play.

Nathan stared at it, then mumbled, "Damn, Kate. Waste of talent that she's the one with tongue game like that," He fell silent, then spoke again, "Victoria, I don't remember this."

"Kate says that you offered to take her to the hospital," She shifted, placing one gentle hand on Nathan's knee, "She says she remembers getting in your car, too, but that she didn't end up at the hospital. That's all she could recall. Nathan..."

He buried his face in his hands, "She's probably right. That probably all happened."

"I guess I should be grateful that you weren't in some horrible accident, driving drunk and doped out," Victoria gave a bitter chuckle, shaking her head, "You really have no idea where you could have taken her instead? Or what might have happened to her there? What might have happened to you?" Her breath caught in her throat, the calm faltering, "Who could have drugged you both?"

Nathan was trembling now, as he leaned against Victoria, and spoke in a breathy, uncertain tone, "I have an idea, but I can't say."

"You know..." Victoria moved away from him, standing up. She wandered over to the one part of his room she resented. That certificate hanging on the wall, "I'll always be on your side, Nathan," She turned back to look at him, her voice quiet and lacking her usual confidence, "You don't have to tell me, but there's somebody else you're afraid of, besides Sean, isn't there?"

"I... Can't say."

"Okay," Victoria nodded, satisfied in his answer as she walked to his door, then paused and spun back around, "I don't want to go to class today. Skip with me."

\-----------

 

Frank Bowers had set up near the 2 Whales Diner again. It wasn't that the spot was especially hopping, but he couldn't very well stop too close to Blackwell, and this place was a common hangout for anyone who'd be interested. In the past, Arcadia Bay was not the only place he sold in, but these days he would leave its borders to fulfill other requests, but no new clientele outside. This was thanks to Nathan Prescott.

He didn't want to admit it, he didn't much like the kid. He'd blamed it on Rachel Amber before, but since she wasn't in the picture anymore, it had to be Nathan's fault. He was just such a good customer, but so spontaneous too. He'd think that a rich kid would make some effort to fit his drug deals into a schedule, but instead, he was always just showing up without any warning.

There was one client he definitely hated more than he hated Nathan Prescott, though, and that was Chloe Price. Unfortunately for Frank Bowers, the latter was stood in front of him right now, having knocked on the door to his RV. He stood with his arms crossed, "Chloe. You finally got my money?"

"Not yet," Chloe rubbed the side of her arm, then met eyes with Pompidou. He was snarling at her. She stepped to the side, revealing Max's presence, "My friend wants to talk to you."

"Um... Hi," Max waved, and noticed that the rather harsh-looking dog had begun to wag its tail when she was the only one in his vision. Before she could continue talking to Frank, Pompidou approached her with a goofy 'dog-smile' across his face, just begging for the Good Pets. She couldn't resist, as she continued, "I'm Max Caulfield. I'm kind of new in the area. I grew up here, but I've only been experiencing it as a teen for a little more than a month."

"Yeah, I don't need your whole life story," Frank groaned, "I was going to say any friend of Chloe's these days is an enemy of mine, but Pompidou likes you, so let's call it even and go from a blank slate. What do you want?"

"Information," Max answered, her voice as serious as it could be while she was petting a dog.

"Information, huh? That's about fifty a pill. Pretty pricey. You sure you can afford it?" Frank questioned.

"What?" Max screwed up her face, "Who calls a drug 'Information'? That's not what I'm here for at all. I mean literal, actual info. You know, the concept."

"Oh," Frank paused, then chuckled, "I did think it was a little strange you'd start right off with that, but I'm not the type to question potential clients. So you just want me to tell you what I know. What about? I know plenty about a lot of things."

"Well," Max finally stopped petting Pompidou and stood up straight, "I did have some questions in mind already, but now I'm just curious what 'Information' is, as a drug."

"That's just some new slang for roofies. Lot of people wouldn't feel comfortable asking for them by that name, so it's been going around that there's a few other things to call 'em," Frank wasn't going to pull his punches. Max was clearly not an undercover cop, and if she hung around Chloe, she already knew all about what Frank did for a living.

Max blinked a few times, "Are there... A lot of people buying roofies in Arcadia Bay?"

"Not a lot, but plenty of folks get a rise out of taking them themselves. Half or quarter pills usually, to avoid getting doped out so much they can't remember anything," Frank answered. He was fine talking in vague terms about his product, "I don't usually sell to anyone I think'll use them on other people."

"Except Nathan Prescott," Chloe had intended to stay out of the conversation, but she couldn't help herself, spitting the name out with spite.

Frank seemed surprised at this, "Have you met the guy? Of course he's using them on himself. Hell, he pays extra for another variant that's gotta be injected. That's obvious self-use right there."

"No, asshole," Chloe hit her hand against the wall of his RV and leaned around the doorway, "He used them on me. Who knows who else?"

"Trust me, if he used the injection on you, you wouldn't know it," Frank rolled his eyes, "He probably slipped you a quarter pill on impulse, because you're such an annoying bitch it was the only way to shut your ass up."

"It's dangerous for you to keep selling to him, Frank!" Chloe snapped.

"He pays. Unlike certain others I know," Frank wrinkled his nose, looking down at her, "I use my own discretion and nothing else, and I may not like the kid, but his shitty self-medicating pays for my meals. I'm not even keen on believing you when you say he misused the stuff. You're a known liar, Chloe Price."

"That's not what we're here for, anyway," Max butted in, trying to diffuse the situation, "Frank, we don't want to get in any fights, or judge you for anything. Really, all we want to do is find out what happened to Rachel Amber."

"You're still barking up that damn tree?" Frank questioned with a roll of his eyes, "Look, there's nobody who wants her to turn back up more than me, but it's been months. It's not gonna happen. She abandoned us."

"...Is that so? Nobody more than you?" Another voice joined in the conversation. Max and Chloe turned to see that Victoria was walking up from behind them. Chloe didn't seem shocked to see her there, but Max certainly was, giving her an incredulous look as she stepped up to Frank's RV, "So Jefferson's not the only adult man that Rachel Amber had under her belt, huh?"

Max was caught off-guard by Victoria's lack of using Mr. Jefferson's first name. She usually put that name in her mouth as often as she could.

"Who the fuck are you!?" Frank questioned, pulling his lips back in a harsh scowl. Victoria was about to answer, when Chloe noticed that she wasn't alone. Nathan had fallen a bit behind, but he was following after her. Before Victoria could respond, Chloe moved to jump at Nathan, some sort of shouting lecture on her lips.

The yelling never came to fruition, because Max and Victoria moved in the same moment. Max grabbed at Chloe, holding her back, and Victoria moved to stand in front of her, having suddenly produced a nail file from her purse, holding it in front of herself with a look of disdain, "Well, Caulfield, I have to commend you on at least keeping your dog leashed..." 

She turned her words to Chloe now, "Let's clear something up, okay? Nathan got drunk, and acted foolishly. All he wanted to do was photograph you in a semi to unconscious state, out of belief it would make good art. I would even agree, had he picked a different subject than you. Believe me or don't, but don't you dare hurt him."

"Girls, girls, you're all pretty," Frank attempted to calm them all in a rather dismissive fashion, waving his hands, "Answer the question, kid. Who are you?"

"Victoria Chase. I'm a student at Blackwell-" She started, only to find that Frank cut her off.

"You have no business knowing anything about my connection to Rachel Amber."

"I wasn't finished," Victoria scoffed, stepping past Chloe and Max to look Frank in the eyes. Pompidou didn't seem to know what to make of her, not snarling like at Chloe, but making no shows of friendship either, "I am Victoria Chase, a student at Blackwell Academy. Nathan Prescott is, to speak in terms you can understand, my _best friend_. I have questions for you."

"Oh good grief," Frank groaned, turning to look around his RV, "First we've got shitshow Chloe Price and her friend, and now some prissy bitch... And his friend Victoria. All looking for me to talk about shit, not even buying. I need a drink."

"Who says I'm not buying? I'm willing to pay for whatever you can tell me," Victoria raised her eyebrows, then turned to the other three, "I'd prefer to speak with Frank alone, however. I'll relay anything pertinent to you, I'll promise that much. I may not be the nicest bitch around, but even I'm not so cruel that I'd deny Rachel Amber intel to Chloe Price."

"...Fine," Chloe mumbled, wandering back to the far side of the parking lot. Max came along and sat down next to her, while Nathan did as well, standing before the two of them. He seemed to be lacking his usual aggressive stance. Chloe gave him a hard look, "The fuck do you want, douchenozzle?"

"Victoria says I should apologize," He sighed, bouncing his leg where he stood as he looked around nervously. He seemed terrified, "About the party thing. So I'm sorry. And _I_ say I should apologize about what happened in the bathroom. I didn't mean to."

"Didn't mean to?" Chloe questioned, "You pulled the trigger, man. If that gun had been loaded, you woulda killed me! Your money's really that important to you!?"

"That isn't what happened!" Nathan snapped, but then held both hands to his head and took a few steps backward, away from the two of them, taking a deep breath to try and calm himself, though the edge remained, "It was an accident. You pushed me. You think I wanted to reveal that all I had were blanks? I was trying to scare you."

"Okay, let's say I believe that. Still begs the question why you needed to scare me. Couldn't you just cough up two hundred? Bet that's a drop in the bucket for a Prescott!" Chloe crossed her legs. Max decided to stay out of this unless it started going to far, because for now it seemed to her like this was actually a productive argument for the two to have.

"It was never about the money!" Nathan hissed, pacing back and forth, then reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, throwing bills in Chloe's direction, "Here, take the damn cash! I've always let people take advantage of me, so who's one more!? May as well be Chloe's bitch too!'

"Oh yeah, boo hoo! Go cry, rich boy," Chloe shot back, and Max decided to get involved, grabbing onto Chloe's arm with a sympathetic look aimed in Nathan's direction.

"Chloe..." She whispered, but it was a loud whisper, "It's not about you. You don't have to be mean."

"Oh yeah, totally," Chloe rolled her eyes, "I'm being so mean, throwing some insults at Blackwell's biggest bully's boyfriend. Heh, say that three times fast."

"I'm serious!" Max insisted, giving her an offended look, "Just because somebody's a jerk, doesn't mean you need to sink to their level. Like, at least attack something they're not obviously sensitive about?"

"Were you always this much of a spoilsport?" Chloe questioned.

"Yes, probably," Max nodded.

"Ugh," Chloe rolled her eyes, then looked up from their conversation, "Uh... Where's Nathan?"

\---------

"So, Frank Bowers," Victoria leaned against the wall, arms crossed over her chest, "What will you charge me per answer?"

"Er," Frank didn't expect to get this far. How did one value information which wasn't just a street name for a drug? "That depends on the question. Five for easy answers. Twenty for tough ones."

"I can imagine all of my questions have tough answers. That's fine," She noted, then looked up to meet his eyes, "Roofies. Who you sell them to besides Nathan?"

"One more clause, okay? You tell me why you want to know these things," Frank said, "And if I don't appreciate your reason, I can refuse to answer. No charge for those, obviously. I do have some client confidentiality to uphold."

"Obviously," Victoria agreed, picking at her nails as she spoke, "I want to know because I have video evidence that Nathan, as well as somebody else, got drugged at a party last week. Drugged beyond clearly remembering the events," She grimaced, "And, trust me, Nathan would never dare to drug himself around other people."

"Well," Frank answered, "Nathan's the only person with any connection to Blackwell Academy who buys them. No other students, teachers, alumni, parents of students, or other faculty. There are others in town who buy them, but I can't imagine any of them having any connection to one of your weird 'Vortex Club' parties."

"Interesting. Okay, my next question," Victoria continued, "Your relationship with Rachel Amber. Were you aware that she also had a relationship with Mark Jefferson, of Blackwell Academy? And did you know of any others?"

"I knew I wasn't her only lover, but she told me I was the only one she wanted to keep dating. She thought we'd go to California together," Frank explained, "She never told me who any of the others were. If I knew, I'd have already confronted them about possible involvement in her disappearance."

"Okay," Victoria nodded, then stepped closer to him and leaned in, leaving very little space between the two of them, "Now, for my most important question, Frank Bowers. Don't lie to me. Have you ever laid a hand on Nathan Prescott?"

"Er, I," Frank stepped backwards, away from her, "I slapped him once to snap him out of it when he started acting really weird, back when he first started buying from me. Otherwise, no. It's my general policy not to get violent with paying customers."

"That's good enough for me," Victoria pulled out her wallet and handed him forty-five dollars, deeming this final answer to seem an easy one. Without another word, she turned and left, only for her brow to furrow when she saw Max and Chloe sitting at the far end of the parking lot, with Nathan nowhere to be seen. She approached them, "Where is Nathan?"

"We were just wondering that ourselves," Chloe answered, "Knowing him, I'd guess he's off to do some more drugs. Maybe play with guns?"

"Knowing him, you don't know him, and that's not likely," Victoria scoffed, then looked to Max, "I'm not getting anywhere with your mutt. You have any answers for me?"

Max paused, glancing at Chloe, then sighed and gave her response, "He was apologizing to Chloe for almost shooting her, they got into an argument, he said something about always letting people take advantage of him, and Chloe told him to go cry."

"Gee, I wonder. If I had to hazard a guess at where Nathan could have _possibly_ run off to," Victoria put her hands on her hips and bent over until she was eye-level with the seated Chloe, "Do you think he could have gone to cry, like you said?"

"Like Nathan Prescott's cried a day in his life," Chloe turned away, flipping a dismissive hand.

"This is hopeless," Victoria sighed, pressing two fingers to her own temple as she straightened up again, "Look, Rachel Amber apparently had several other lovers besides Frank Bowers. Jefferson only accounts for one. Do what you want with that information, I'm going to go find Nathan."

"Have fun with your sociopath boy-toy!" Chloe laughed, waving as Victoria walked away, then turned back to Max with a full-on sourface, "That's way more talking to Victoria Chase than I've ever wanted to do, my whole life."

Max leaned back where she sat with a shrug, "Was she a megabitch back before you got kicked out of Blackwell, too?"

Chloe nodded, "Oh yeah, absolutely. She didn't even like me the first time we met, probably because I sort of distracted Rachel from some sleepover the two of them, plus Taylor were supposed to have? Which I guess makes sense, but she was a douche about it."

"Well," Max shrugged, "I checked out her room this morning. Underneath all of... That, she kind of seems like a cool person."

Chloe wrinkled her nose, "Not the sort of thing I expected you'd find out when snooping, ugh. Don't abandon me for those jerkwads, you hear?"

"I'd never do that," Max promised.

\-------

"Nathan," Victoria said his name as more of a statement than anything else, and he looked up from his phone, quickly tucking it into his pocket when he saw her.

"Victoria..." He mumbled, looking away again. Staring down at the pavement, just not making eye contact. Not right now.

She didn't say anything else. All she did was step up to him and act on an observation. When he was around Chloe, he'd held his arms in a weird position, keeping his hands over his right shoulder and chest. She placed her hand on that spot, and he collapsed into her again, holding on as if his life depended on it. So she was right.

That was where Chloe had shoved him away.

That was where somebody other than Victoria had touched her best friend without his permission. Why couldn't they all just understand?

No, that wasn't Victoria's real wish. It would be nice if everyone understood, of course, but...

It would be even nicer if Nathan had never become this broken to begin with.

If they... As she now realized there had to be _someone_ else...

Hadn't broken him.


	3. If you leave me, rest assured it would kill me

"So, we've got the keys," Chloe twirled said keys around her finger as she stood in the garage, "David won't suspect a thing when Mom tells him that I had my goody-two-shoes childhood friend over today. You're the perfect cloak, Max. Good thing you're secretly a troublemaker too."

"Yeah, don't think this is going to be a usual thing," Max grabbed the keys from Chloe and stuffed them into her pocket, "I don't want to get in too much trouble. A rebellious streak is cool, but full-on delinquency? You have to admit, it doesn't suit me."

Chloe looked her over, then nodded, "Good point, yeah. Anyway, since you're here already," Chloe paused and stretched, looking around her garage, "You wanna sleep over, like old times?"

"I'd love to, Chloe, but," Max felt it in her pocket when she stashed the keys, "I have to get back to Blackwell tonight, at least. I was supposed to give Warren something I borrowed from him yesterday, but I forgot, and I don't want to make him wait any longer. You could come with me, though. It's not security who checks the dorms, just faculty who don't care. Pretty sure I could just hide you under my bed and you could stay over. I've got a couch and everything. You can meet my plant."

"It would be my honor, to meet your houseplant," Chloe chuckled, "I bet you even named it, huh?"

Max pouted, crossing her arms over her chest, "...Lisa. I named her Lisa."

"Knew it," Chloe laughed, then led the way back out of her house. She brought Max over to her truck, and once they were both situated, made her way back towards Blackwell. The two of them had hung out all around town today, going to Chloe's home as a last stop to see if they could swipe a set of David's keys to go about their snooping endeavors. Well, for Max to snoop. She still didn't know if Chloe was confident in her ability to come along without getting arrested, because that had to matter at least a _little_ bit to her, right?

Upon arriving back at Blackwell, Max immediately went to seek Warren out, though Chloe stayed close behind her. They'd timed it just about perfectly, and Max was able to find Warren hanging out right in the parking lot when they pulled in. He was a bit surprised to see her, raising a hand in an unsure wave. She walked up to him and pulled the flash drive from her pocket, holding it out to him, "Hey, Warren. For cereal, I meant to give this to you yesterday, but then some really weird stuff ended up happening, so here you go."

"Weird stuff?" Warren asked, furrowing his brow as he took the USB from her, "What sort of weird stuff? Is that the same reason you weren't at school today?"

Chloe squared up next to Max with a scowl, as she always seemed to acquire when talking about the people in question, "Yeah, yesterday Nathan Prescott shot a blank at me. I'd call that weird stuff," She griped, "Also, I'm Max's childhood friend, so she's been hanging out with me both to catch up and to help me through the debilitating trauma of thinking for like, half a second that I was going to die from a gunshot wound."

"Wait, I'm confused," Warren narrowed his eyes, "You... Who are you? Exactly?"

"Chloe Price," Chloe answered with a flippant sigh, "I got kicked out of Blackwell. Bullshit, probably, since Nathan can bring a literal real gun onto campus and who knows what else, without a shot in Hell at getting expelled. And you're Warren Graham. Max owes you a flash drive. Owed. You've got it now, so we have no real reason to stick around..."

"Don't be rude, Chloe," Max chided her.

Warren nodded, "Yeah, uh, I'm not especially fond of Nathan Prescott either. Did you tell Principal Wells about the gun?"

Max shook her head, "I wanted to, but Chloe had a really good point. We don't have any evidence... I didn't take a picture or anything, I was kind of an idiot. There's entire parts of the school named after Nathan's family, so we'd need better than two witness reports, one from somebody who shouldn't even have been in Blackwell's bathroom in the first place, to have anything going for us."

Warren waited a moment, then sighed, dropping his arms to his sides, "Yeah, you're right. I'm just so sick of that guy getting away with anything, just because his family's old money. That whole club..."

"I can't say who I hate more," Chloe noted, raising her eyebrows, "Nathan's more of a headcase, for sure, but Victoria's just a bitch. And she keeps standing up for him. She threatened me today, too! I just now remembered that! Victoria Chase _threatened_ me for being mad at Nathan. Fucking disasters."

"I don't understand why everyone can't just be nice to each other," Warren groaned, rubbing the back of his neck.

Max shrugged now as she stepped past Warren, in the direction of the dorms, "I feel like everyone could be. It's not like we're being very kind to Nathan and Victoria right now, talking behind their backs about how they're horrible people..."

"Hey, they started it!" Warren protested. "I was really worried when I heard you weren't in class, Max. They weren't either. Those two are such assholes that I thought they could have done something horrible to you, like tied you up in the woods! I've heard that bullies do things like that, sometimes."

She paused, and turned back to Warren and Chloe, eyebrows raised, :"I sincerely doubt that. Anyway, Warren, they skipped all day too? Have you seen them arrive back yet?"

"Just Victoria," Warren answered, slipping his hands into his pockets, "Nathan dropped her off. I couldn't hear their conversation, but it didn't seem good to me. I couldn't tell for sure, I think Victoria tried to physically drag him outta the pickup? She gave up and went back to the dorms, though."

Max smirked, and held a hand out, "Chloe, you know what that means, don't you?" Chloe just gave her a confused look, but then realization dawned on her face. She nodded, then stepped forward and grabbed Max's hand to be led the right direction. Warren just stood there, remaining confused. At least he'd gotten his flash drive back, but he felt like he understood Max way less now than he had when he first loaned it to her.

Max and Chloe arrived at Nathan's dorm building, and after checking that the coast was clear on the outside, Max opened the door, wandering in. No key needed to get into the building at this hour, though she'd probably need the master key to get into Nathan's room specifically. Upon arriving at it, again once nobody was looking, she slipped David's key into the lock and pushed forward, finding herself in the room.

 

Chloe rushed in behind her, shutting the door before anybody noticed that they were somewhere they really weren't supposed to be. Once closing it, she paused and looked around, grimacing as she took in Nathan's choices of decor, "Wow, the creep has a creepy room. Big shock."

"I dunno," Max shrugged, "It is pretty well-organized. Too well-organized, I guess. It kind of feels like he only decorated it because he was expected to..." She noted, then stepped over towards the far wall, sweeping her eyes around the area. She pointed to a set of shelves, "Check those out. There might be something interesting in that box on the bottom there."

Chloe rolled her eyes as she crouched down, "Interesting, yeah, sure. Give me the opportunity to uncover the horrifying secrets, so that you don't have to," She pulled out the cardboard box, rifling through it, "Damn, what's the kid even need to go to Frank for? He's got like, nine different scrips."

Max shrugged as she checked the art hung on his walls, trying to see if he'd maybe hidden anything behind them, "Is it more illegal or less illegal to sell off drugs prescribed to you or drugs you bought from a supplier?" She tapped the wall, "Plus, if he has that many prescriptions, I certainly hope he's taking them. I'm sure he needs them."

"Needs them, or is bribing his therapist?" Chloe wondered aloud as she uncovered a small book, which she unfolded and squinted at, "Oh, it's therapy notes. I guess he goes to the same practice I do? After a certain number of sessions, they've got this policy to put together a manual to help handle whatever they diagnose you with," She flipped through it, not reading most of it, just looking for pertinent information, "Christ, this is a mess of a manual, Max! All sorts of shit about how to prevent 'outbursts' and 'breakdowns'. Pretty sure he's not taking any of the advice in here. Could you imagine, Nathan Prescott trying to get a handle on his bullshit by listening to whale songs? It's obvious he's not being honest with the shrink at all."

"We can't make assumptions like that, Chloe," Max sighed as she reached the odd item out. Among illustrations and photographs of rather dark subjects, the sort of art she would expect Nathan to like, was something which wasn't an art piece at all. A best son certificate from 2006. She wondered what possible reason he could have to hold onto something like that for so long.

"Ha. Well," Chloe stood back up, frowning, "Nothing good for evidence against him, I am afraid! I don't want to still be here when he gets in, so we should go back to your dorm, right? We can do more investigating later," She grabbed the doorknob to leave, "I just want to get some rest for now. Dealing with the Vortex Rulers twice in as many days is more than my Blackwell-less ass can handle."

"Well, if your ass can't handle it, I guess we have no choice," Max shrugged, and the two of them checked once more that the coast was clear before leaving, and making their way to Max's room.

\-----------

Nathan parked in the middle of nowhere.

The biggest benefit to owning a pickup, he decided, was the fact that he very well _could_ park in the middle of nowhere. It wasn't exactly an off-roading vehicle, but it wasn't a wimpy little fiat or anything either. He wasn't going to try and drive it over hills, but abandoned dirt roads were fair game and he never had to worry about getting flats, ruining the suspension, or otherwise fucking his vehicle over by daring to subject it to anything other than asphalt.

It also, unfortunately, helped with reaching the dark room, given that it was out in the middle of fuck all, under a barn. That wasn't where Nathan went today, though. He went elsewhere in Arcadia Bay to be alone in his parked truck, digging in the glove compartment for something, anything to take the edge off. He knew something bad was going to happen tonight. Of course it was. He'd ignored Mark to spend the day with Victoria instead.

The text he'd received mere moments after running away from Max and Chloe had done nothing to solve his mood. Come to The Dark Room, immediately. No. He couldn't just do something like that, not when he'd promised Victoria that he would skip with her. It didn't make sense. Mark had classes to teach. The Dark Room was a responsibility for weekends and evenings, until suddenly that message promised that it wasn't. Nathan knew he'd made a mistake. He'd ghosted Mark Jefferson. Had anyone ever done that before? `He doubted that if they had, they'd lived to tell the tale.

In the glove box, all he came up with was aspirin. He didn't tend to keep anything in his car, but had hoped that something worked out. Well, aspirin was still better than nothing. The bottle said to take one, and take another if the pain persisted. Well. He poured five out into his hand. He'd done his due diligence, it didn't become _too_ dangerous until one took twelve in twenty-four hours. Five to distract himself wasn't the worst.

Like it would really matter if it was the worst? Well, Nathan knew he had to be smarter than that. He didn't want to give up on everything, not now, not after all that he'd already endured. There was something to be said for his presence. Were it still only his father, then maybe escape would be the choice which made sense to him, but there was something different about Mark Jefferson. If Nathan were to die, then Sean Prescott would just recoup his losses, and give up on whatever it was that he'd wanted. Mark used Nathan as an outlet that he would act on even if he didn't have him.

He still acted on it in other ways, even having Nathan at his disposal, and that was what frightened him away from finding some way to get away from it all. He knew it all. There were plenty of times he'd been made to remember it, even, and he almost envied the girls who got to never know what happened to them when they were drugged up, doped out, cold. If it was going to happen anyway, he envied that they got to forget about it.

Nathan did not envy that those girls were targeted in the first place. Of course he didn't, and even if they got out of it without suffering, without knowing, there was no way to completely erase the idea. There would always be something there, Nathan knew firsthand. A sinking feeling, some sort of dread. Feeling disgusting, or broken, even beyond the effects of the drugs which knocked them out so thoroughly. Nathan thought he almost remembered times when he'd been subject to the drugs himself. Almost. That injected stuff was potent.

The only way to keep in Mark's good graces at all was to bring him the drugs he needed, pass them off. In return, he was almost courteous to Nathan. Sometimes, if he was in a good mood; but even so, it came back to bite him eventually. There were plenty of times when Mark had used his age to offer Nathan all the alcohol he could want to take to parties, a way to pay him back for the drugs, he claimed.

Victoria had unveiled the truth of those gifts, or at least, the truth of one particular bottle recently.

_I have to say, Nathan, you've been doing especially well lately. It was a little hard to track down, but this wine's your favorite, yes?_

Kate must have taken some too, from that bottle. That was all Nathan could think of as an explanation for what had happened at that party. Mark had slipped something into the one thing he knew he could count on Nathan to drink from. He wanted him drugged that night, and Nathan had already realized why. That text sitting on his phone, Kate. Until Victoria had shown him that video, Nathan thought it was only plans, but once she did, he knew. Mark always found it easier to convince Nathan to bring those girls to the dark room if he didn't have the agency to think about it.

It wasn't the hospital at all, that he took her to that night, he already knew that much. It was The Dark Room, and he could only assume that the text he received today was an invitation to come see the photographs that Mark had taken of Kate.

He took a deep breath, having swallowed the aspirin, and leaned back in his seat. Moments later, his phone started to ring. He hit the button to pick up and held it to his ear wordlessly.

"Nathan Prescott," Mark's voice came through, as expected. Another burner number, of course, "You've disappointed me today. As punishment, I have sent a certain image to one Max Caulfield. I expect she'll show it to the principal, or to the very friend you ignored me to spend time with today. Perhaps both. There are many other things I can implicate you in as well, so in the future, you _will_ come to The Dark Room when I tell you to," The tone was menacing, unwavering, certain in its cruelty.

Nathan didn't know what image Mark could be referring to, and he didn't want to find out. He would have to find out, though, wouldn't he? It would happen as soon as he returned to Blackwell, some way or another. Mark hung up the phone. There was no request to come see him now, the damage had already been done.

He decided not to face his problems. Not to go back to Blackwell tonight, he'd deal with it in the morning. Rather not drive right now anyway. He climbed out of his seat and into the truckbed so he could lay down flat, his jacket would keep him warm enough and it wasn't as if he was about to care about bugs.

\---------

Chloe noticed the envelope as soon as Max opened the door to her dorm room. It was just sitting on the ground, and it stood out. Everything else in Max's room looked like it belonged, but the bright white envelope on the ground was strange. Though Chloe didn't want to intrude on her friend's privacy, she reached down and picked it up, then turned to Max, "Hey, what's this thing?"

"I dunno," Max answered as soon as she realized what Chloe was asking about, then took the envelope and turned it over. It wasn't labeled, except for one phrase in small, handwritten letters, 'For Max Caulfield's Eyes'. She frowned, pressing the edges of the envelope between her fingers, "Well, all that's in it is a piece of paper, I think. Doesn't feel like anybody stuck razor blades in or anything."

"What about anthrax?" Chloe questioned, leaning over.

"I doubt anyone would be sending _me_ anthrax, Chloe. Razors is about the absolute worst I could expect from anybody who dislikes me..." Max rolled her eyes, then opened up the envelope with one finger. She reached in, and found a photo; that was what it felt like, anyway, and she pulled it out.

"Jesus Christ..." Chloe mumbled as she stared at the image, bringing her hands up to cover her mouth in her shock. She was trembling, and neither of them were able to say anything for a while, frozen in surprise, "That's... Rachel."

The image was a strange one, and unsettling. Rachel didn't look awake at all, and she was propped against a familiar body. Nathan Prescott. Those were the first two things which made it such an intimidating thing to see, but there was one other aspect that Chloe and Max both realized. The angle. Getting a shot like that with a tripod and a camera timer... It seemed that there _had_ to be one other person present to take the photo.

Max slid down her wall to sit on the floor, tossing the picture away from herself. She didn't want to keep looking at that, and Chloe sat beside her soon after. They didn't touch, didn't make any offers of comfort to each other, because they were both too shaken to think about helping the other. Why had they received the image? Chloe had two theories. Victoria left it as a threat, or somebody else knew that they were suspicious of Nathan. Frank? No, with the way Frank spoke about Rachel Amber, he wouldn't defend Nathan's drug purchases if he knew about this.

Warren, maybe? That could be it. When Chloe finally got up the nerve to speak again, she mumbled, "Do you think Warren got a hold of this somehow? After we told him we were suspicious of Nathan, maybe he thought we should consolidate evidence..."

"No," Max shook her head, voice quiet and barely there at all, "Warren wouldn't have done this anonymously. He'd want me to know that it was him..."

Chloe nodded, "With that possibility out of the way, it has to be a threat. Do you think it's from Victoria?"

Max didn't answer. She couldn't answer. She didn't want to think that it could be Victoria, because she didn't seem evil. She was a mythic bitch, of course, and had sadistic social tendencies, but that seemed to be motivated by a pure goal, as Max had seen from her room. Victoria was ambitious and harsh, but she wasn't a monster. Then again, Max thought, she'd already turned to criminal activity for Chloe's sake. There was something between Victoria and Nathan, and that something could be a bad influence.

There was a knock on the door. Neither Max nor Chloe moved to get the door. Another knock, and then a small, worried voice wafted through, "Max...? I know you're in there, the light's on..." It was Kate. Max took a deep breath, then stood up and opened the door. Kate immediately took a step back, "Did something happen? You look like you've seen a ghost!"

"Hi, Kate," Max muttered, looking down at the floor, "I'm fine."

"Well, if you say so..." Kate sighed, then leaned into the doorway, "I was asked to check rooms tonight, because the faculty member assigned said she wasn't feeling well. Uhm... You don't have anyone else here, right?" She spotted Chloe sitting on the ground, "Ah, who are you? Max, is this a friend from when you were in Arcadia Bay before?"

"Hey," Chloe got herself together, standing up to introduce herself without the slightest quiver in her voice, "I'm Chloe Price. You totally guessed right, Max and I were friends back when we were kids. Connected soon as she got back."

"I see. Well, technically I should tell you to leave the dorms, but..." Kate frowned, rubbing the side of her arm, "I know you'll just sneak back in, probably, so I don't want to seem like a jerk."

"Good point. So who are you?" Chloe asked.

"Kate Marsh," She answered, averting her eyes, then she blinked and looked back up, "Ah, Max, that photograph on the ground, is it supposed to be there?"

"What?" Max questioned, turning around, then spotted the picture she'd been anonymously sent, and dove to pick it up, holding it against herself with the image-side hidden, "Oh, no it's not, thank you for telling me."

"It deserves to be on the ground, though," Chloe scoffed.

"That's not a very nice thing to say to your friend!" Kate remarked, giving Chloe an incredulous look.

Chloe blinked, "Oh, no, Max didn't take that photo. Wouldn't say that about anything she took. The working theory is that Victoria Chase took it."

"Well..." Kate sighed, "I can't change the way that you think, but it's not nice to say that about Victoria's photography either... She's not as bad as she seems," She paused, "I can't tell you too much because I made her a promise, but she had a way to be really cruel to me, and decided to use it to help me out instead. So just... I guess you should think about that before you assume things about her being awful."

Chloe clicked her tongue, "What's with everyone lately and acting like _not_ doing one bad thing suddenly turns a bad person into a good one?" She snatched the photo out of Max's hand and showed it off to Kate, "I don't care what Victoria didn't do to you, because she did take this photograph. I'm certain of it. Look at this and tell me that you still think it doesn't belong on the floor. In the garbage, even."

"What?" Kate questioned, taking the picture which Chloe held out to her, "What is this? Is this... Nathan and that missing girl, Rachel Amber?"

"Chloe-" Max started.

"Why were you even trying to hide it, Max?" Chloe cut her off, "Everyone needs to know about this photo. Kate, do you notice anything weird about it?"

Kate peered at it, leaning in close, then leaned back out and looked up, eyes wide, "Now that you mention it, I do! Nathan looks really weird... Like," She frowned, handing the photo back, "I can't tell you."

Chloe paused, then furrowed her brow, "What about Nathan now? Look at Rachel. Her eyes aren't just closed, she's totally not awake. She's definitely unconscious!"

Kate took a step backward, shaking her head, "I... How did you get this?"

"Somebody slipped it under Max's door! We're thinking it was Victoria, trying to use it to threaten us for being 'mean'," She made very exaggerated air-quotes, "To Nathan earlier. Which is total bullshit."

Kate stopped, dropping her hands to her side, "If It's total bullshit, then why are you assuming that's what happened? I think that we should ask Victoria about the photograph. There's definitely something not right about it."

"You know, I agree," Max nodded, then looked to Chloe, "I know that's probably the last thing that you want to do, but if Kate thinks that there's something weird about the picture..." Max paused, shrugging, "I mean, you have to admit just looking at her, she's a moral paragon."

"Either a moral paragon or a goth aesthetic lesbian," Chloe noted, then pushed past Max into the hallway, since Kate had stepped back more than enough to leave room, "I think we should do it, though! If Victoria realizes we know it was her, we can get her to step off. She doesn't know who she's messing with. Chloe Price and Max Caulfield, the original dream team? Yeah, like she could beat us."

Before either of the others could comment again, Chloe had already gone down to Victoria's door. She could tell whose it was by the writing on the whiteboard to the side, and she rammed her fist against it, the noise reverberating out and down the entire hall. She didn't wait for Victoria to answer to the single, intense knock, instead deigning to shout through the wood, "Chase! Get your dumb ass to the door right now, or I'll knock the damn thing down!"

As soon as Chloe had shouted this, the door swung inward, and Victoria peered around the side of it. She had her trademark glare going for her, but seemed to be holding onto the door for physical support, swaying as she spoke "Price again? The Hell do you want _now_? Seeing your face twice in a day is just too much..."

"Probably should have thought of that before you slipped this under Max's door!" Chloe hissed, holding the photo up. Victoria squinted at it, then lurched forward and grabbed it, holding it much too close to her face once she'd claimed it, "Don't go acting like you've never seen it before. There's no way that could have been taken on a timer! You had to have taken it!"

"Ughh..." Victoria mumbled, then looked back up at Chloe, "Price, this is the first I'm hearing about this. I couldn't have taken this photo, it's, like... Not my style at all," Her speech patterns seemed off, somehow different from usual as she stumbled back inside her room and picked up a portfolio, practically throwing it at Chloe, "Like you've got an eye for art, even you should be able to tell that I use totally different techniques..."

Max leaned over, and she nodded as she had to admit, "They're too different, yeah. So, Victoria, if you've never seen this photo before..."

"Yeah," Victoria nodded, leaning against the doorframe, "See if I were _sober_ right now, I would be flipping out, seeing as this is a photograph of the missing girl, unconscious, alongside my best friend, roofied. That's a very unfortunate connection," She looked over and spotted Kate, "Marsh! You recognize the look in his eyes, right? You wanna tell these two? Fine if you don't. Here's my go-ahead though. Not like these bitches can think much worse of Nathan anyway."

"Ah, thank you!" Kate nodded, stepping forward, a bit shaky, "I... Wanted to show it to them, but you told me not to show anybody else, even though I trust Max to know about what happened. Uh," She pulled her phone from her pocket and pulled up the video, trying to show it mostly to Max, though Chloe muscled her way into getting a pretty clear view too, to Kate's slight discomfort, "Look at my eyes, and Nathan's, too. They're the same as in that picture..."

"So what does that mean?" Chloe questioned, ignoring the contents of the video in general as she stepped back, thinking, "That party... Nathan drugged me that night, but he did it badly, so I woke up too soon for him to do what he wanted. He was just drunk, not high at that point, for sure. He also said he wanted to imitate his favorite photographer, when he apologized, right...?"

Max clapped her fist to her palm, "He did! I assumed that his favorite photographer was an artist somewhere else in the world, but... What if it's somebody in Arcadia Bay?"

"A shitty mentor for a shitty guy," Chloe muttered, then frowned, "That doesn't change the fact that this photo totally implicates Nathan in Rachel Amber's disappearance. It's the first real lead I've gotten in months. He's connected..." She sneered in Victoria's direction, "Look here. If your boyfriend doesn't fess up what he knows about Rachel, I can't make any promises I won't physically hurt him."

"He isn't my boyfriend," Victoria stated in such a blunt manner that it had to be the truth, especially when she was this inebriated, "He's my best friend, I love him in a fiercely platonic way. He's the most important person in my life right now, and you're mistaken about him. If he had anything to do with your girlfriend's disappearance, I'll stake anything that he doesn't actually remember any details, or even that it happened."

"Everyone, let's please not fight..." Kate tried to diffuse the situation, but by the time she'd finished her sentence, Chloe was already backing down. She knew better than to bother with an argument right now, though she kept one parting remark.

"What's it gonna take for you to wake up and realize that Nathan's a danger to you and everyone around you?" Chloe's tone lost its aggression, now more empty and hopeless as it really set in. As far as she was concerned, Victoria was enabling another girl to go missing, just like Rachel Amber did. It could be Kate, or Max, or Victoria herself, and as much venom as she spat at the latter, Chloe didn't want any of those things to happen.

"What's it gonna take for _you_ to wake up and realize that Nathan's more a danger to himself than he could ever be to anybody else?" Victoria questioned, then shut the door. She turned to look at her own room, then slid down the door and buried her face in her hands. Where was Nathan right now? Where had he gone after dropping her off? She'd started drinking to drown her intense worries for him, and now she was only more concerned than she had been before. She had a theory now. More than a theory; she knew the truth somewhere deep within her heart.

But how could she possibly get any evidence?

\---------------

Nathan woke up in the bed of his pickup, and as soon as he opened his eyes, he saw that he had several texts waiting unread. A number were, in the dead of the night, from Victoria. The typing style was the same as usual, but with a number more typos. She was drunk, he assumed. There was one from only ten minutes prior, and it was from a blocked number, as all of Mark's texts were.

"Victoria Chase," Was all it read.

"please not her"  
"please"  
"i'll do anything"


	4. I make a mess and you'll be there to help me undress

Chloe woke up on Max's couch when the sun started filtering in through the window above her desk. It hurt her head; why did anyone ever want to wake up to sunlight? Chloe groaned and stretched out as she sat up on the couch, looking across the room to see that Max was still asleep. She rubbed at her temple and stood up, pushing her hair back from her face.

Yesterday... So much happened yesterday, and it was all coming back to her as she woke up again. The bizarre five-way conversation in the morning when she'd tried to speak with Frank, the photograph of Rachel Amber which implicated Nathan in her disappearance. The way that nobody else was as convinced as Chloe was that Nathan had to, based on that picture, be involved.

Why couldn't they see it? She didn't understand. Victoria, well, she was obviously just in complete denial of Nathan's true nature, but Chloe expected better of Max. Kate seemed to be the type to believe there was good in everyone no matter what, though, so she wouldn't hold it against her. Was it because of the prescriptions, that Max was so willing to overlook such damning evidence? Chloe knew that she was a bleeding heart. She'd have to be, to look past how much her best friend had changed, but couldn't she open her eyes when it came to that psychopath?

Chloe wandered over to the window and stared out at Blackwell's campus. She missed being here. Missed the time that she spent here, at this school, with Rachel. It had been months with no sign of her. Not a single text, word, anything, and Chloe still held out hope somehow. Rachel Amber was alive, she had to be. After meeting her, after getting to know her and become an important person in her life, Rachel became the crux of Chloe's identity. Being with Rachel became a reason for Chloe Price to live, to pick up the pieces of her life that had fallen down all around her.

When Max had moved away without another word, her father was dead, when everything was shifting from the way it had been in her childhood, Chloe needed something and somebody to hold onto. That ended up being Rachel Amber, and that was why Chloe couldn't even entertain the idea that she'd died, that she wasn't out there somewhere, alive and well, just ignoring everyone who ever cared about her.

Chloe found it easier to believe she'd only been abandoned again, than to think that somebody she loved so thoroughly, with every part of her being could have befallen some horrible fate. Even if it was some variety of foul play, if it was Nathan's fault as she suspected, she still didn't falter from the belief that Rachel was being kept somewhere. Alive. She had to be alive.

Max stirred, and Chloe stepped away from the window, looking over at her as she woke up. She stood there for a while longer, then spoke, quiet and afraid, "Max? Why didn't you say anything to me in the five years you were in Seattle?"

"Chloe?" Max questioned, trying to process why she was being asked that first thing in the morning. Chloe had a strategy, though. When her brain wasn't firing on full yet, Max would have to just say the first response she thought of, "I don't know. But you didn't either."

"What do you mean?" Chloe asked.

"You didn't say anything to me in those five years either, Chloe," Max sat up, stretching her arms out above her head as she did, "I'm not saying I was right. I feel awful, but you didn't reach out to me either. We were rude to each other. It's fine, though. You found Rachel, after all."

"No, that wasn't it at all. Rachel found me," Chloe answered, wandering over. She sat down next to Max on the bed, "I didn't get in touch... Hell, I probably wouldn't have even answered you if you had, at first. Everything was in pieces in my life, and I didn't have a clue what to do about it, none at all. Rachel Amber came into my life like this amazing ray of sunshine, and she helped me put the pieces back together. She was the only person who I wanted to _let_ be my friend."

Max nodded, "I understand. And, Rachel, she turned out to be more than a friend, didn't she?"

"Is it that obvious?" Chloe questioned, pulling her knees up to hug them to her chest.

"A little bit," Max gave a light chuckle, reaching out a hand to Chloe's shoulder, "You didn't say anything when Victoria called her your girlfriend, for one thing. Also, you acted like Victoria's intel that Mr. Jefferson and Frank weren't Rachel's only lovers wasn't a new lead at all. You were the third one, weren't you?"

Chloe sighed, looking away, "Yeah. I know, Max. I know that I've been a basketcase, that I've been acting totally whack since we reconnected, and I can tell that you think I'm being a bitch, but it's because of Rachel, okay? I don't want to suspect Nathan, or Victoria, or anybody, but I can't help it. If there's a chance that any of them hurt Rachel, I just could never forgive them. I need to _know_ what happened to her, I need to get some sort of closure, especially... Now that you're here."

Max froze, staying silent for a while before she responded again, not looking at Chloe, "Why does me being here make you need closure any more than before?"

"Because, Max," Chloe leaned back with a groan, "I loved Rachel. I thought that she was my star-crossed soulmate, you know, shit like that? It's sappy and awful, and it's like, if we were meant to be together, I don't want to move on. If we weren't, then why shouldn't I just keep going? I need to know so I know what to do. And for me, keep going means falling in love with you, Max. Not that I expect anything to happen with that. Just, you know. Another crush along the way."

Max turned back around to face her, a soft smirk on her face, "First Warren, now you? What exactly about me is so crushable these days? Back in Seattle, I couldn't even get a junior prom date, and it's not like I wasn't trying. Nobody wanted anything to do with me, back there. The two people who ever had a crush on me before had already dated and subsequently dumped me."

"I don't have the crush just yet, Mad Max!" Chloe raised a finger in the air, "I just feel it waiting to come on if it turns out I don't have a girlfriend. If it turns out she really did abandon me. That she's not just somewhere, waiting for me to come and join her and live happily ever after, in a life where she doesn't need me to be okay with her sleeping with teachers for grades and dealers for drugs."

"It kind of sounds like you loved her more than she loved you, Chloe," Max noted, "Are you sure that you _want_ to wait for her?"

Chloe groaned and stood back up, "I guess, I mean, you're right about that, but she was still my angel. I loved her more than I ever thought I could love anyone. I know it's just because she was my first love, but that's a hard thing to let go of."

"I understand," Max nodded, standing up as well as she crossed her arms over her chest, "And so, I'll help you. I already wanted to help you, but knowing the truth, I don't just want to. I need to. I need to help you find out what really happened to Rachel Amber, and where she is now, and whose fault it was. But we're not going to find anything else out while classes are in session, not today. I'm going to go to school, and as soon as I'm done, we'll get back to our detective work, okay?"

A smile broke out across Chloe's face, and she nodded, stepping to the side so Max could get to the door, "Thanks, Max. I know with your help, we'll find an answer one way or another. Good luck in class today!"

"See you later, Chloe. You can mess around with anything in my dorm if you want, or you can leave, just stay out of trouble and meet me after school," Max nodded, then opened the door and went to get ready. She showered, got dressed, and made sure she was ready for school, then made her way out to the class building. The day went pretty much as normal, except for two things Max couldn't help noticing.

The first was that she didn't see Nathan anywhere, and the second was that while she did see Victoria in one of their shared classes that day, she was notably absent from photography. That seemed odd; if Victoria was attending anyway, not skipping the entire day, that would be the class that she avoided going to. Well, Max wasn't going to press her on it, not now anyway. She'd bothered Victoria so much over the past few days that she didn't need to continue now.

Photography was the last class of the day again, so she picked up her bag and started to make her way out of the classroom, only to be stopped by a light brush of fingertips on the back of her arm. "Max?" Kate questioned, and she turned around to see her.

"Yeah, Kate?" She questioned. She had to admit, last night when Kate assured her and Chloe that she'd be fine to go back to her room, Max had doubted it, after seeing that video, but wasn't going to pry, "You okay?"

"About that, I wanted to talk to you..." Kate mumbled, wrapping her fingers around Max's wrist, "Could we go somewhere private? There's some more to the story than what I told you."

"Yeah, of course," Max nodded. She wasn't going to deny it if Kate wanted to open up to her. Just because she was focusing on rekindling things with Chloe and helping her when it came to Rachel Amber, that didn't mean she wouldn't make time for another friend of hers who was so clearly in need.

Kate smiled, then pulled Max by her arm, bringing her to an outdoor area back behind the school, out of earshot. There was something shiny on the ground, and Max crouched down with her camera. She snapped a picture, then looked up again, "This is a cool aesthetic, and maybe evidence. It's ammo? I don't know why it's here."

"Me neither," Kate agreed, leaning back against the wall of the building as Max stood up, "Photographing it is a good idea... A-Anyway, I showed you the video, and you were so kind and concerned about it, that I... I need to open up to somebody, so I decided that if you would allow me, I'd talk to you."

"Allow you? Kate, that's not the right term to use at all. It must be difficult to tell me about something like this," Max rubbed the side of her arm, "I'll always listen if anybody needs to talk, especially somebody who's my friend, like you are."

"Thank you, Max," Kate nodded, then took a deep breath before she spoke again, "See, that video isn't the extent of what happened. I... Well, I can't remember it, but when I woke up back in my dorm the next day, I felt really... Really gross. I can't explain the feeling, but it was awful. And I think, last night when we were talking to Victoria, I realized something. For a good five minutes that morning when I woke up, I think I understood. I wanted to scream, and hit something, and then I scribbled in my sketchbook until it faded away. And I've seen Nathan's photographs. And I've seen the way he acts. I may have understood how he feels all the time."

"You mean..." Max started, then stared at Kate, "Whatever happened to you, do you think it's happened to Nathan too? Do you have any idea what that could be?"

"I don't," Kate shook her head, clasping her hands in front of herself, "Nothing good, though. Nothing good," She closed her eyes, "If the way I felt afterward, without even remembering what happened is any indication... Max, do you think that's why that photo exists? That one of Nathan, and Rachel Amber?"

"Could be," She nodded in response, "Kate, if you remember anything else... Chloe and I are trying to find out what happened to Rachel. We're playing detective, I guess, but it's more serious than that. If you even have any theories, no matter how out-there they might seem. Anything helps."

"I don't want anybody else to feel the way I did that morning," Kate sighed, "And I had my faith to hold onto. Plenty of people don't even have that much. They don't have God, and they don't have friends like you, Max. Thank you so much for listening."

"Of course, Kate. Anytime," Max nodded, then kicked one of the bullets which was, for some reason, on the ground. She paused and looked down at them again, "Wait. Kate, do you know anything about guns?"

"Absolutely nothing," Kate shook her head, "Why would I?"

"Well," Max crouched down and picked up one of the bullets, "I don't know much of anything, but I get the feeling this is ammo for some type of handgun. I was just sort of hoping you could confirm or deny, "

"I'm afraid I can't," Kate sighed, then looked back in the direction of the dorm buildings, "If anyone we know is going to be able to answer that question, then maybe your friend, Chloe? She seems a bit rough and tumble, after all."

"Good point," Max nodded, then looked back to Kate, "Are you okay if I head back up there? I'm perfectly happy to stay with you for as long as you need."

"I think I've said everything important," She shrugged, "You can go on ahead. Thanks again."

"See you later, Kate," Max nodded, then slipped the bullet she'd picked up into her pocket as she wandered back towards the dorm buildings. When she rounded the corner back to the front of the class building, she spotted the security guard. David Madsen. It felt a little weird to approach him as a student of Blackwell, knowing that he was Chloe's stepfather, but she decided it was for the better that she did, "Excuse me, Mr. Madsen?"

"Miss Caulfield," David recognized her, putting his hands into his pockets, "You need something?"

"Yeah, I was just out behind the school and," She pulled the bullet from her pocket, holding it out to him, "I found this on the ground back there. A bunch of them, actually. It's a little concerning, don't you think?"

"A bullet, huh?" David questioned, taking it from her with a frown, "It's for a handgun, for sure. Hasn't been fired, though. Say, what were you doing out behind the school, Miss Caulfield?"

"Me?" Max questioned, pointing to herself, then gave her answer without hesitation, "Oh, a friend of mine wanted to have a private conversation without going all the way back to the dorm buildings, that's all. We went back there because we didn't expect anyone to walk in on us, but I found that. There's a lot of cigarette butts too, but I think for a lot of students, that's legal," She shrugged, "No way to tell if it's the underage students who are smoking or not."

"Thank you for you honesty, Miss Caulfield," David nodded, examining the bullet, then shrugged and handed it back to her, "I have no reason I need to hold onto this, though. There's no way to track back an unfired bullet, you know? I'm glad you brought this to my attention, though. I'll collect the rest from behind the school, and maybe then the administration will choose safety over aesthetic and put in some metal detectors."

"I'd really appreciate that," Max nodded with a smile, then continued walking towards the dorm buildings with a wave, "Oh, and Mr. Madsen? Take it easy on Chloe. She's having a tough time, and being a security guard with her won't help. Tough love's never gonna convince her that you care," Before David could give her another response, she was already gone, power-walking towards the dorms.

She opened the door, then made her way up to her room, and knocked in case Chloe was still in there and wasn't decent. Chloe opened the door from inside, then put a hand on her hip, "Max! I stayed here all day, rifling through your shit because you gave me permission. Nothing I found especially interesting, but I did find out the sort of things you started liking in Seattle. Indie as Hell," She laughed, "How was class?"

"Weird," Max shrugged, shutting the door behind herself, "Nathan was absent again. Victoria wasn't, but she skipped one class. I talked with Kate some more. Back behind the school, and I," She pulled the bullet from her pocket again, "Found this bullet."

"Shit on a shingle, Max!" Chloe snatched the bullet, examining it, "This is definitely handgun ammunition! Holy fuck, Nathan loaded the gun! He loaded it then emptied it out behind the school, he totally intended to shoot me but he chickened! Max. Max, are you seeing this shit!?"

"I am, b-" Before Max could give her response, she was hit in the back by her door opening again. She stepped forward, then whirled around to see who hadn't even bothered to knock on the door. Victoria.

"Oh. You're still here," Victoria glared at Chloe, then released the doorknob and stood up straight, "Well, good. Now I can give you both the same argument."

"Are you psychic or some shit? You can tell when the guy you inexplicably protect has got more evidence against him?" Chloe questioned, sauntering over towards Victoria with the bullet between her thumb and forefinger, "Guess who just found out that Nathan almost wanted to shoot her for real?"

"He never wanted to shoot you for real," Victoria deadpanned, "He was fucking terrified of you and forgot until I reminded him that it was possible not to load the gun he was bringing to try and scare you off from hurting him. I'm well aware of that and it doesn't matter."

"So why _are_ you here?" Chloe spat, taking up an aggressive stance.

Victoria glanced away, "I should have known it was a mistake to come to you. I just thought, since you know the most about what's been going on with Nathan lately of anyone else I know, you'd be able to help me. You're still... His enemies, though."

"Hold up," Max stepped into view, furrowing her brow, "What are you talking about, Victoria?"

She sighed, "I'm... It's about that photo you showed me, at least in part. Nathan's missing. Like Rachel Amber. And... It has to be connected."

"Excuse me, what?" Chloe questioned, taking a step backward as she was caught off guard, but then composed herself and her scowl returned, "Hasn't it been like, twenty-four hours at most since you last saw Nathan? How could you possibly come to the conclusion that he's missing, and how _dare_ you assume it's the same as what happened to Rachel!?"

"Nathan would never disappear like this without at the very least saying goodbye to me! I haven't been able to get in contact with him all day, and that's not normal!" Victoria snapped.

"Well now you know how I felt when everyone said Rachel just ran away!" Chloe shouted back as Victoria's words about saying goodbye struck her through the heart, "That photograph. Rachel was unconscious, Nathan wasn't. It's easy to put two and two together and say he _made_ her disappear-"

"Chloe Price," Victoria took a deep breath, lifting a hand to rub her eyes before maintaining her steely glare, "Missing, disappear, it's been months, sweetie. Haven't you ever thought that you should stop looking for Rachel Amber and start looking for her body? I figured your business was your business before, but if finding her body could help us find out what happened to her, we might still have a chance to save Nathan."

"I haven't ever thought that because Rachel is alive. She isn't dead, she's alive," Chloe protested.

"Let's find out," Victoria turned around and started to power-walk down the hallway. Chloe rushed after her, as did Max, just because they were curious what possible plan Victoria could have. She led the way straight to her car, then turned around and raised her eyebrows, "Max, you're riding shotgun. Chloe, get in the back. I like you less."

"Good. I wouldn't want to be liked by you," Chloe climbed into the backseat, surprised at the state of Victoria's car. It was immaculate, except for the condensed pile of various things which took up the other seat in the back. She gave it an odd look, "So how do you presume to find out if Rachel Amber is alive?"

Victoria shrugged as she put her key into the ignition, "I can't prove if she's alive. If we can find her body, however, that will prove that she's dead."

"You seem awfully calm, Victoria," Max noted, "I think it's admirable that you can keep a level head in the face of a crisis."

"This isn't a level head," Victoria muttered, starting up her car and peeling out of the lot, "I was panicking, earlier. That's one half of the reason that I skipped photography class. I'm barely keeping it together, but given that you two are handling yourselves enough to investigate, I'd be remiss not to do the same now that Nathan's disappeared."

"Victoria..." Max started, her voice soft and concerned, "Why are you so worried about Nathan already? Chloe's right that it hasn't even been a very long time."

"Because of things that I, and only I know about Nathan Prescott," Victoria answered, gripping the steering wheel even tighter, "A-Anyway! My reasoning is Frank Bowers. That dog that he has. If I can convince him to let us utilize Pompidou, and I _can_ , then we can go out in the woods and to the junkyard and see if it can't sniff something out."

"Psh. What makes you think you can get Frank to loan out his dog to find Rachel's body? If there's one thing the two of us can agree on, it's that she _can't_ be dead," Chloe called out from the backseat, and Victoria just ignored her as they approached the parking lot where Frank was currently parked. Victoria parked, jumped out of her car, then motioned for the others to follow her. She knocked on Frank's RV with the hand on which she wore her fashionable rings.

And when he didn't answer, she just continued knocking, and continued, until after a good, solid minute he pulled the door open, looking for all the world as if he'd just woken up. It was still afternoon, though, so that didn't make sense. He grimaced when he saw the assortment of people who'd showed up, "Goddamn, you four again?"

"Just three this time," Max shifted between her feet, frowning, "Nathan's... MIA."

"MIA?" Frank questioned, then scoffed, "What do you mean, Missing In Action!? The only action Nathan ever gets himself into is parties, and last I heard, none of you Blackwell kids wanna party on a Tuesday night. Or Wednesday, period."

"God," Victoria groaned, "Max, I appreciate you trying to take the burden off of me, but if I want something done right, I need to do it myself. Frank, Nathan is not MIA, he is just missing. Disappeared. Like Rachel Amber."

"I just saw him yesterday. We all did. How can you know so soon?" Frank asked.

"That's what I said!" Chloe butted in.

Victoria rolled her eyes, "I've had a bad feeling since we parted ways last night, okay? It just got worse this morning, and he's been having a much tougher time lately, and he hasn't been answering my texts or calls. I'm very certain that whoever made Rachel Amber disappear has done the same to him. She did not just run away without saying goodbye, and neither did Nathan. Somebody is kidnapping Blackwell students."

"That's quite the conclusion to jump to, kid," Frank rubbed at his temple, "I mean, seriously. There's a million other explanations. Anyway, even if you're right, why in God's good name would you come talk to me about it?"

"Because I want to borrow Pompidou," Victoria explained, meeting his eyes, "I want to take your lovely dog out and, seeing as you spent so much time with Rachel Amber, see if it notices anything. Particularly, a buried body somewhere out in the woods, or an abandoned lot, or the junkyard. Really just everyone somebody might bury something."

"There's one fatal flaw in your reasoning there," Frank noted, "Rachel Amber never would have let herself be murdered. So I guess my answer is no."

"You're only saying that because you don't want closure. You want to just keep thinking that Rachel could come back for you. You're just like Chloe, and the thing is, I want to believe that Nathan is alive. I want to, but I can't let myself believe it. If I denied the possibility that he's been murdered, I would be even more devastated. I am about to go searching for your girlfriend's body. Come to terms with the chance I'll find it," Victoria stepped past Frank into the RV and grabbed a leash off the wall, clipping it onto Pompidou.

Before Frank could protest further, Victoria was out of the RV and back to her car. Max offered to sit in the backseat with Pompidou, since he liked her best of the three of them, and Chloe was safer sitting next to a human enemy than a canine one.

First the woods. The lighthouse. Pompidou found nothing there. The next stop before continuing to other woods was the junkyard, which Chloe stayed in the car for that one. She and Rachel had spent so much time there in the past, it seemed especially weird to Chloe that they'd go looking for her body here. Max held Pompidou's leash as she and Victoria wandered around, until suddenly, he pulled against the leash.

 _Please, just need to shit,_ Max thought to herself as Pompidou tugged her over, but when he started just sniffing about at the singular, same spot, then started digging. Max handed the leash to Victoria and dropped to her knees, digging with her hands at the same spot as Pompidou. 

Victoria's hand tightened around the leash as she looked on in horror. She didn't want this. She'd never _wanted_ this. She wanted the dog to find nothing, to give some weight to Chloe and Frank's insistence that Rachel Amber was alive. Then again, maybe it wasn't Rachel. Maybe it was somebody's pet. Maybe it was... Nathan. Victoria found herself backtracking to hope if it was a human body, it was Rachel after all.

Chloe looked out the car window, and when she saw Max drop to the ground, opened the door and jumped out, running to where she and Victoria were. As she got closer, Chloe noted that both Max and the dog were digging, and she collapsed as well, joining Max in scooping dirt out with her bare hands. She didn't blame Victoria for being frozen in fear, but she had to jump into action herself.

Her knuckles scraped against something else. Something softer and colder than the dirt that surrounded it, and she retracted her hand, falling backwards as she exclaimed her disgust. She shook her hand off, then leaned forward again, peering into the hole. She stared for a good minute before she muttered, voice quiet and vacant, "Rachel..."

"How..." Max choked halfway through her words, moving away from the hole to look at Chloe instead, but the look on her face just upset her more, so she squeezed her eyes shut, "How can you even tell that _thing_ is Rachel Amber?"

"Her earring. It's her earring, she always wore that. There's no way that's anybody else," Chloe mumbled, then brought her dirt covered hands up to cover her mouth, furrowing her brow, "Oh God, the smell... She's dead, Max, she's been dead for..."

"Months," Victoria added in, staring as she pulled Pompidou closer to herself so that he wouldn't cause any trouble with the unearthed body, "It has to be months. Since she disappeared. Chloe, she's been dead this whole time, and," She froze, bringing an arm up to wipe her eyes, but when she pulled it away, she'd gone from tearing up to full-on crying, drops immediately streaming down her cheeks, "For all I know, Nathan's already dead too."

"Not if we can find him," Max stated, standing up to meet Victoria's eyes, resolved, "It's only been twenty-four hours since you last saw him. If that picture of Rachel was related to when she disappeared, then we must still have time to find Nathan."

"It really wasn't Nathan, was it?" Chloe groaned, standing back up as well and turning to Victoria, "This was months ago. If he was skipping town because of Rachel, he would have done it sooner, right? And now he's gone missing. Just like she did. And he wouldn't have just fucked off without a word to you, I'll take you on your word. If there's anyone that Nathan wouldn't leave without saying goodbye to, I _guess_ it's you," She waited a moment before she continued, staring right through Victoria, "I'll help too. Not because I care about you or him, but I know Max wants to; And finding Nathan also means getting revenge on whoever did this to Rachel Amber."

"It does, doesn't it?" Victoria nodded, then started to walk back to her car, keeping her face out of view of those two as she continued fighting back tears, "The truth is, I don't think it's a whoever. I... I do have an idea, of who it could be, but there's no way for me to get physical evidence. No way anyone would believe me. Everything I have is based on things that only I know about Nathan, too. I'd have to explain so much for it to even make a tiny bit of sense."

"Try me, Victoria," Max offered, "You can just whisper it, if you don't think Chloe will understand."

Victoria paused, then sighed, "I'll just tell you both, and you can decide if you want to believe me. It's the other half of the reason why I skipped photography," She rubbed her hands together, nervous, fidgeting. She didn't want to say it out loud, because that would condemn herself for her past opinion of him, but she needed to voice her theory, "I think that the person behind that picture, of Nathan and Rachel, could be... Jefferson."


	5. I'll be obscene, I'll be unclean, you'll be the rest

Mark Jefferson was a man of complicated pleasures. That was what he referred to himself as, and what Sean Prescott might be inclined to call him if he were to call him anything. Nobody else had the breadth of knowledge of his life and decisions to come to the conclusion that he was that kind of man.

A normal man, Mark knew, would be satisfied with what he deemed mediocrity. A mediocre and boring hobby, rather than a spectacular one. A mediocre sex life, barely stepping out of the realm of vanilla. Satisfaction was something which Mark craved, and something which he could only find in The Dark Room.

The Dark Room hadn't always been a location; once upon a time, it was just a concept. It was the idea that there was something more to be captured in the lens of a camera. The idea that a photograph was a moment, immortalized, wasn't a strange one at all. The difference that Mark noticed in what he explored was that certain moments went near-ignored.

Every photographer of humans was reaching for the perfect moment to capture, and that moment was the single worst moment of somebody's life. Disaster photographers sometimes found that moment, but Mark felt that he could do better. There was a way to achieve that moment without ever needing to search for it. He only needed to force it. Cause it.

The very idea of it was exhilarating. That was what could satisfy him, but he didn't know where to start. How to start; he wasn't about to rush into something without first making a plan, he wasn't that sort of person. Even when the idea of satisfaction was within his reach, he couldn't just grasp it with the risks that awaited him if he made one wrong move. He needed help. He needed somebody he could trust not to look at him the wrong way for even beginning to suggest such a thing.

There was only one man who'd fit that bill, and Mark had gone to him. Gotten everything he needed. A location for his darkroom, in Sean's underground bunker. That was all he truly needed, but there was one more gift. A lackey, a minion, someone disposable to do the dirty work.

That was all Nathan was ever supposed to be to him, and Mark was certainly mad at himself for getting attached.

 

\------

"Why would you think that it's Mr. Jefferson?" Max asked, and she didn't seem surprised at all. Only curious. Victoria stared back at her, trying to work through the genuine question that she'd been posed, the fact that it was a genuine question. She expected Max's reaction to be one of absolute shock that Victoria would even dare to think of such a thing.

Chloe stepped closer to Victoria, "That's the teacher who Rachel was dating?"

"Yes," Victoria gave a curt nod, "That's part of the reason I suspect him, after seeing that photograph. Chloe, you and Frank both had very particular reactions to Rachel Amber's disappearance, reactions grounded in denial. Jefferson never did that. At first I thought it was only that he didn't care about her, that he was just using her for sex, but there's other reasons behind my theory."

"I want to hear those reasons, Victoria," Max stated, putting her hands into her pockets as she looked up at the sky. There was no Chloe or Victoria to avoid eye contact with, no Rachel Amber's corpse up in the sky. Just blue and clouds, nothing to worry about.

Victoria sighed, pressing her hands to her face, "Do you really? Max, it's terrible things. Things I wish I didn't need to know, that I wish never happened. I don't want you to think I'm lying. I don't want to violate Nathan's trust like this, but I feel like the only way for you to understand how certain I am is to tell you all of it."

"We'll listen to all of it, Victoria," Much to her surprise, it was Chloe who answered this time, reaching out to touch her shoulder, "I don't like you. I don't like Nathan. I doubt I will ever really like either of you, but I know Max is trying to, and Max is a very important person to me. I want to know what she sees in either of you that's worth talking to. So I do want to understand why Nathan is the way he is, and why you're so worried about him. What makes you think you know who's behind this."

Victoria nodded again, then without a word, led the way back to her car. She didn't speak again as they returned Pompidou to Frank's RV, then back to the dorms. Once parked, Victoria brought the other two to Nathan's room with her, then jimmied the lock with a bobby pin. A few of the guys glanced over, but nobody thought it was weird for Victoria to be breaking into Nathan's room.

Nobody until Warren, that was. He walked up to the three girls and leaned against the wall with a slight chuckle, "Hey uh... What are you doing here, Max and... Company?"

"If anything, this is Victoria and Company," Victoria mumbled from where she'd gotten the door unlocked, pushing it in but waiting to go in until they were left alone again.

"Fine, but that doesn't answer my question," Warren noted.

"Hey," Chloe greeted him, "So uh, I'm still processing, but here's the update. Rachel Amber is dead, Nathan didn't kill her. Nathan went missing just like Rachel did. We've got a temporary truce with Victoria Chase, and now Max and I are gonna hear about Victoria's theory of who could be responsible."

"Holy shit," Warren couldn't help but be surprised at this news, taking a step backwards. He paused, then looked between the three of them, "I mean, I'm not surprised to hear that Rachel Amber's dead, but... Nathan's gone, of all people? Uh, do you... Need anything, any help? Hanging posters or something?"

"...Even with my theory that I know who it might be, posters are probably a good idea. I really could be wrong, and even if I'm right, I can't prove it in any helpful way," Victoria sighed, then looked to Warren, "I'd ask you to spread the word, but you're like, twelve. I can't imagine you know much of the student body."

"Sixteen, actually," Warren corrected her with a grimace.

"Warren," Max put both of her hands on his shoulders, "We're all _really_ having a hard time right now, so you'll have to forgive Victoria. I can only imagine she's going to drink to excess as soon as we're done investigating, and truth be told, I might too. I'm sure Chloe will. With this in mind, Warren, can you understand? You don't want to get too involved, and posters are definitely the best way you can help."

"Yeah," Warren nodded, "I'll see if Brooke will help, too. She's always been super nice about this sort of thing."

Max was surprised to hear that, since Brooke had always seemed cold to her, but then again, she didn't know Brooke's opinion on Rachel Amber's disappearance. She could just be the type of person whose kindness showed in times of crisis and tragedy more than everyday life. Once Warren had turned and left the three girls alone, Victoria pushed the door to Nathan's room open more, and motioned for the others to follow her.

Once they were all inside, Victoria shut the door, then strode across the room directly to that certificate hung up on the wall. She reached up, grabbed it on one corner, then wrenched it off the wall in a harsh movement. She turned around, stared at it for a few moments, then tore it in half with a grimace before she dropped the pieces to the floor, then looked to Max and Chloe, "If I'm going to be betraying his trust anyway, the least I could do is get rid of that terrible thing."

"What's so terrible about it?" Max asked, glancing down at the pieces on the floor, "It seemed kind of sweet, that Nathan held onto it for this long."

"It's not sweet, he hates it too. He only held onto it because he feels some idiot need to constantly make himself feel like everything bad that's happened to him is his fault," Victoria hissed as she stepped on one of the halves of the paper that she'd torn up, "Sean Prescott never thought of Nathan as the best son in the world. He hardly ever thought of him as a son to begin with. I've wanted to rip this thing up for a long time now, and since I'll be revealing Nathan's secrets, this is just one more thing for him to be mad at me over."

"Victoria..." Max took a deep breath, looking around the room again. It seemed different now, than it did when she'd looked through it the previous evening. The entire place was unsettling. It felt, Max decided, like the kind of room decor she would do if she'd been forced to decide what to put in her own dorm the moment after she'd seen Rachel Amber's body, "What happened to Nathan?"

"His father happened," Victoria explained with a groan as she sat down on Nathan's bed, looking around the room, "And happened, and happened. That certificate, he told me, he got them every year. 2006 was the last year that he got one, though, and just a few months after he received it, things started going downhill at home. He got diagnosed with a whole host of mental issues, and his father..."

"Jesus Christ, Chase, are you saying what I think you're saying?" Chloe questioned, leaning against the closed door with her arms crossed, "I mean, I know rich white people have all sorts of problems."

"Well, I don't know what you think I'm saying, but what I'm saying is..." Victoria took a deep breath, then steeled herself to speak with her usual cold tone, "Sean Prescott is an as-of-yet unregistered sex offender. When it came to light that Nathan's behavior had no true 'solution', all pretense of raising him right to take over the family fortune fell away. Nathan told me that his father decided that he would still be considered the Prescott heir, but he would have to earn it... Through sexual favors."

"Yeah, you were saying what I thought. Well, my theory was just that his dad hit him, but that..." Chloe clicked her tongue, "Doesn't surprise me at all, honestly. Nobody gets as messed up as Nathan Prescott without some outside factors too, no matter how many mental illnesses he started off with. Still, how is this relevant to that teacher? I can't see how knowing that the most violent student at Blackwell got molested has anything to do with Rachel Amber getting killed."

"Chloe, that's rude. Victoria would never tell us this if it wasn't relevant," Max noted, then looked to Victoria again, who gave a short nod in confirmation.

"I wouldn't dare," Victoria held a hand to her chest, "It is relevant, because I know this about him. Because of it, he hates anyone, even me, touching his waist. It was only his waist, and for a little while, he was getting better. Then he got worse. Way worse, and it's his wrists too. He flinches," Her composed tone was faltering as she explained her observations, "And I realized there had to be somebody else who was hurting him."

"And you think that somebody else is Jefferson? How did you come to that conclusion?" Max questioned, still with nothing but that genuine curiosity.

Victoria shrugged, rubbing the sides of her arms, "I started to think it was him on Monday, actually. It's not a very well-developed theory, but Nathan was telling me about how he pissed you off, Chloe. He said he was trying to emulate his favorite photographer, and I had to wonder about Jefferson. Once that possibility was in my mind, I couldn't get it out. Just the seed of it, and it was like my crush shriveled up and died."

"And there's more," Victoria continued, "I found out that Kate Marsh isn't attracted to him at all, so it's not like with Rachel Amber. Jefferson is outright crushing on one of his students, unrequited. That's not great," She took a deep breath, "I became confident enough in my theory to want to avoid him when I saw that photograph of Nathan and Rachel. It's exactly the type of photo Nathan would want to recreate by drugging Chloe, and the only photographer who could have done that is Jefferson."

"That's a reach," Chloe said, then sighed, "But it's all we have, and I have to admit, it does line up. Max?"

"Now that you mention it," Max pulled out the photograph in question again, frowning, "The style is very similar to Mr. Jefferson's. He's the only adult, career photographer in Arcadia Bay... And he has access. He knew Rachel Amber. Kate Marsh helps him after school. I could brush it off as coincidence, if there were any other suspects, but..."

"So you believe me?" Victoria questioned, shifting where she sat, "That's all I have. That's why we can't go to the authorities about it, there's nothing there which they would understand. Besides, they're all on Sean Prescott's payroll. They'd never believe the whole story even if I tried to explain. I... I need your help. I don't know what to do. I just," Her voice finally broke, and she hid her face as she started to cry again, "I don't want Nathan to end up like Rachel!"

Max and Chloe didn't say anything, just staring at Victoria. They didn't have to say anything, because they finally understood. Victoria wasn't just Nathan's best friend, she was the only person he'd trusted to confide his misery in. She gave herself the burden of being his rock, and now he'd disappeared. Just as much as he relied on her, she'd grown to rely on him. On having him there. They were two halves of a pair, and Max at least understood now how they could be this way.

The King and Queen of the vortex club. Best friends. A miserable wreck, and the one person who wanted to listen and protect him. A frightened child of ambition with a cruel exterior, and the one person she would truly bear her soul to. It really was the same club it was when it started.

"We really will help you, Victoria," Chloe was the one to break the silence, measuring her words, "We'll try our best, anyway. I can't promise anything. I know one thing I can do to help, though. My stepdad's security here. Maybe... I mean, we don't get along so I can't count on it, but maybe I can convince him to give up some relevant information..."

"The entire school already came together to look for Rachel Amber when she first disappeared," Victoria groaned, "It doesn't even matter who's responsible when it comes down to it. Regardless of me being right about Jefferson, nobody could find where he took Rachel. How can we find where he took Nathan?"

"Don't panic," Max shook her head, "I'd hate to see _you_ panic. It doesn't suit you at all, Victoria. Come on. Maybe the whole school was looking for Rachel Amber, but I wasn't here then, was I?"

"The only person who even had a slight lead at the time was Nathan," Victoria mumbled, "And he tried. He tried to tell them that he knew where she was, he told me. He told me that Rachel Amber was in the dark room, and that he was going to tell the police what that was, but the next day he didn't even seem to remember ever saying such a thing, and he wouldn't tell me any more about it. God, do you think that's why he's missing now? Did he get too close to telling someone again? Did he get too close... To telling me?"

"Calm down!" Chloe snapped, stomping her foot closer to Victoria, "Please, Jesus Christ. I just found out my girlfriend who disappeared half a year ago is dead, and I'm keeping it together! Nathan's not fucking dead yet, and maybe saving him _is_ hopeless, but you shouldn't go batshit right away!"

"You're right," Victoria nodded wiping her eyes, "I'm sorry. I'm just really worried."

\-------------

Nathan was awake when he arrived at The Dark Room, early in the morning. As soon as he'd responded to Mark's texts, he'd gotten an answer. Victoria could be spared. In fact, everyone could be spared. There was no more need for innocents, no more need for the moment that innocence died, if Nathan just did as he was told. Go to The Dark Room, and from there, just continue.

Just continue.

Carry on.

Mark arrived soon after Nathan did; he didn't have any classes to teach till after lunch, after all. He approached where Nathan had sat down on the floor of the room, reached down, and pulled his phone straight out of his pocket. He stood up, then pulled the back off, removing all of the inside. He threw the battery to the ground and stepped on it, as he snapped the SIM in his hands, "You won't be needing this anymore."

"I won't?" Nathan questioned, looking up at Mark. His voice was level, but not in the same way that Victoria kept a level. It wasn't confident. It was just empty.

"That's right. The only reason you needed a phone was to contact me. You won't ever need to contact me if you never leave this room," Mark explained, then crouched down to be on eye-level with Nathan with a smirk, "And you know, that's exactly my plan."

Nathan looked away from him with a partial shrug, nothing showing on his face, "Okay. I guess if you were going to pick somebody to keep down here long-term, I'm the safest choice. There's only one person who'll even care that I'm missing."

"God, I have to say I expected more from you," Mark frowned, reaching for Nathan's arms. He pulled him up and produced a roll of duct tape from the floor behind himself, taping his supposed protege's wrists together, "Perhaps some crying at least, by now."

"Truth be told, Mark," Nathan mumbled, leaning against the wall, "I'm hardly processing anything you're saying right now. It's past when I'm supposed to take my meds every morning, and withdrawal's already showing up. That's a little fucking distracting, yeah?"

Mark stopped for a moment, then lifted his hand to Nathan's neck and pressed him down against the floor, looming over him, "Well then, you had better be cognitive again by this evening. That's when things will get real, okay? For now, let's just rub one out to keep me going through the day."

\-----------

"David!" Chloe protested, desperation creeping into her voice. She'd gone home by herself, leaving Max with Victoria to try and work through the information a little more. She thought if she made it clear just how important it was, her stepfather would be willing to help, but he continually refused to disclose personal information about the school's security as a matter of policy, "This isn't about policy anymore! This is about the safety of a Blackwell student, so why don't you pull your head out of your ass and realize that there are more important things than following the rules?"

"Chloe, I've told you a thousand times. I can't-"

"Like Hell you can't!" Chloe suddenly shouted, her voice much louder and harsher than she expected she'd be, or intended at all. She knew where the rage had come from, though, and now that it had started she was just going to ride the wave out, though she lowered her voice again, barely holding her anger back behind clenched teeth, "I saw... I saw the note in the garage. From Sean Prescott, thanking you for your help with Nathan. What the fuck is that supposed to mean!?"

"What are you talking about?" David questioned, screwing up his face, "I mean, what do you think it means? Sean contacted me, as Blackwell security, to warn me that his son has got mental issues that cause him to have violent outbursts."

Chloe froze, then took a step back and dropped the aggressive posturing, "...Right, and he's thanking you because, as a sufferer of war-related PTSD, you completely understand mental conditions that prompt violent outbursts. Am I right?"

David also took a deep breath and spoke more calmly when he answered with a slow nod, "...You are right, Chloe. Hey, can you tell me why that note pissed you off so much?"

"If I don't tell you, you'll just run away with the idea and by this time tomorrow you'd be convinced that Sean Prescott and I are planning to burn down the white house," Chloe groaned, scratching the back of her neck as she looked away, "Look, the student who went missing, it's Nathan. Nathan Prescott... His friend is really worried about him, and she told me about what's got him so messed up. I mean, besides the OG mental illness. I jumped to some shitty conclusions when I realized you'd had contact with a rapist, okay?"

"Jesus, Chloe..." David slumped against the wall, looking around before he turned back to her, "Are you sure?"

"Look, I know you distrust me as far as you can throw me, which I gotta admit, is pretty far. Thing is, I can't throw anyone, and that's as far as I trust Victoria Chase or Nathan Prescott. And with that in mind, I still believed Victoria when she told me what Nathan's dad did to him, so... Take that as you will," 

"You have to know that I don't want to distrust you," David sighed, scratching his arm as he looked away, "Earlier, that friend of yours, Miss Caulfield... She told me that I need to ease up. That we could get along if I stopped treating you like a soldier, and I think she might be right. Those might have been exactly the words we needed to hear to get over our differences."

"I don't want to fight, either," Chloe mumbled, staring down at the floor, "I did, when you first started dating my mom. I didn't want a stepdad. I didn't want anyone to even try replacing my dad. And because I hated you for that, then, we really got off on some bad feet, huh? But I... I need you now. I found out that Rachel Amber really is dead. As much as I consider Nathan my enemy, I still... Don't want him to die."

"I see," David closed his eyes and crossed his arms over the front of his chest, "Chloe... My responsibility is to protect the students of Blackwell Academy, and even more than that, to protect my family. You and Joyce are so important to me... I need to tell you to keep out of this. You, and Victoria, and Max too. All of you, just stay away from this whole situation. You need to leave it to the adults."

Chloe scoffed, "Last time I tried to leave it to the adults, you all declared Rachel Amber a lost cause. Maybe if I'd worked harder back then I could have found her before she got-"

"Chloe," David stopped her, his voice firm, "There was no evidence then. Now there is, and all that getting involved will do is put you in the line of danger."

"If there's evidence, then tell me it," Chloe dropped her shoulders down, practically begging now, "David, please, I need something to convince me to keep out of it, because I don't want the same thing to happen again. Victoria has a theory on who could be behind it and I want to follow up on that, and unless you can convince me otherwise, I'm calling bullshit on keeping out of an issue that absolutely concerns me."

David stepped away from the wall, stretching out as he breathed, looking for the right words, then tried his best to explain, "Well, it's just me. I have evidence. I've been... Keeping an eye on the comings and goings of people in this town. Their cars, anyway. It's still just circumstantial, and if I brought it to the authorities I'd be in all sorts of hot water for my methods; and I doubt they'd do anything, either. I just need to act on it myself."

"Yeah, because you going all loose cannon and acting on a suspicion that only you have is so much better than letting high school seniors investigate, at all," Chloe raised her eyebrows, "This person killed Rachel. Rachel Amber would not have just let herself die. Going at it alone, I would bet every cigarette I ever smoked you would just end up killed. Like, I don't want that to happen! I don't want anybody else to have to die because of Jeffer-" She caught herself, clapping her hands over her mouth. She just kept letting things slip today.

"Because of Jefferson?" David asked, and she gave him a sheepish nod, "We're on the same page, then. I've been suspecting him for a while now. Here's some life advice for you, kid. Never trust a man with a goatee. See, the thing is, his car just keeps showing up in really suspicious locations."

Chloe waited a moment before responding, "I... Well, Victoria thinks it's him, anyway. I don't know him well enough to weigh in, but Max also says that it makes sense to her. Look, do you know where he's keeping Nathan, or not? You said you could act on it yourself, does that mean..."

"I've tried to, already," David huffed, holding an arm against his forehead, "I think that it's the Prescotts' bunker, under their old barn. I was already suspecting that Sean could be involved, but he's barely even in Arcadia Bay these days. I was able to get in part of the way into the building, but there's a lot of security."

"...Didn't you ever suspect Nathan?" Chloe asked.

"Of course not," David dropped his arm again, "It's my responsibility to protect Blackwell's students. I would never suspect that one of them was a menace like this. Maybe I got a little interrogative with a few people, but that's just because I was worried."

"I suspected him," Chloe shrugged, "But I don't anymore. I guess for the same reason. Now that I know Nathan's missing, and that a murder happened, it feels like it has to be somebody beyond what we're capable of, as teenagers. A looming force kinda deal. You're right to call him a menace."

"Of course he's a menace. He's hurt so many people," David shook his head, "Something went wrong with Rachel Amber, I think. If she's dead like you say. Everyone else he's hurt, it's been 'catch and release' style bullshit."

"Catch and release?" Chloe questioned, furrowing her brow.

"At least from the girls I've talked to, that's what it seems. Kate Marsh, for example. There are a lot like her. One day, they just suddenly start acting differently, and that's just the ones who aren't good at hiding their emotions. It makes me feel like shit every time. I keep trying to stop it... And I keep failing."

"So stop trying," Chloe shrugged, "Well, stop trying to stop it alone. I know what's up. So do Max and Victoria. Look, I know we aren't exactly militant, but we can make a plan. It doesn't have to be this way! We all want to get justice. I don't want you getting hurt."

"I can't in good conscience agree to cooperate with minors on such a risky matter," David pursed his lips, then looked back at Chloe, "But if you want to access my surveillance, if it will give you and your friends some peace of mind, the password's the date your mother and I met."

\------

Mark returned to the Dark Room.

The first thing that he noticed once he was inside was that Nathan wasn't conscious. He was lying on the floor, but his breathing was uneven and easy to notice. He was alive, and that was good enough for Mark to start a full sweep of the room. Nathan hadn't managed to get out of the restraints, which was expected, of course. Duct tape was a difficult thing to tear apart, especially if all that the victim had going for them was a mediocre level of brute strength and no fighting spirit.

He continued checking out the room. There wasn't much different from when he'd left, which was satisfying. He had wondered if Nathan might manage to wreak havoc on the room, but then, he was smarter than that, wasn't he? There was a puddle of bile in one corner, which Mark determined would have to be the result of that withdrawal Nathan had mentioned. So he hadn't eaten much the previous day. That was fine; there was plenty of food down here that he could give him.

"Nathan," Mark had only to say his name and he jolted awake, looking up at him, "Good. Tell me, it's been another sixteen hours. Are your withdrawals any less distracting now?"

"Yeah, unfortunately," Nathan mumbled, sitting up and narrowing his eyes in the direction of Mark, "So what are you planning now?"

"You know me so well," Mark chuckled, stepping closer to Nathan, "I tried to tell you this morning, but of course, you weren't able to comprehend at the time. In any case, I'm going to be keeping you here. In The Dark Room. For as long as I please, which will likely be the remainder of your life. You said you'd do anything to keep me from harming Victoria, so I am going to take full advantage of that statement."

"What's the point? Didn't you want me helping you, outside of The Dark Room?" Nathan questioned, honestly confused as to what Mark's motivations could be.

Mark crouched down with a half-shrug, "I did, but you kept fucking that up, didn't you? Always whining and complaining if I asked you when you were sober. I shouldn't have to drug a protege to get him to do what he's supposed to. It's like if an intern would only fetch coffee if you gave him a valium first," He scoffed, but then the smirk returned, growing into a grin, "So... I'm changing my aim here."

"To what?" Nathan asked, refusing to make eye contact.

"The thing is, you've belonged to me for as long as I've known you, but I haven't really owned you. You're on rent from your father. I'm sick of that. I'm sick of sharing you with him, and with Victoria Chase, and with anybody else who seems to think that somebody like you is worth their time," Mark shook his head, laughing again, "They're mistaken. The only person's time you're worth is mine, because I see you for who you are. A useless disaster with a pretty face. And if I see that and I still want you, shouldn't I have you?"

"...I guess?" Nathan furrowed his brow, not quite following, "It's not like you've ever hesitated to do what you want to me before."

"I didn't. But I still didn't own you, either," Mark confirmed, "You could leave, go away, and then I'd have to try and get you to come back again. And you seemed to think you had the right to deny me. You don't. You won't, anymore, get that chance. You'll be mine to use as I please, and to dispose of when I'm finished with you. Just like any possession."

"Why?" Nathan questioned, shifting where he sat, "That doesn't seem like the type of thing you look for."

"You may know me well, but not _that_ well. You can't presume to know what I want from life," Mark reached for him, grabbing at his neck again. Nathan squirmed at that touch. Twice today, Mark had grabbed his neck, where he never had before. Had he observed that it was one of Victoria's techniques to calm him down? "The moment when innocence turns to corruption... But it can also be the worst moment of somebody's life. So often, those are the same moment, but I got to thinking recently. One worst moment is something to capture, of course, but what about somebody whose worst moment already happened... but there can be another one?"

"If you think I can get much more dead inside than I already am, you're sorely mistaken," Nathan muttered, squeezing his eyes shut, "But don't let that stop you, I guess."

"Oh, I won't," Mark laughed, "And you're mistaken, Nathan. There's always a lower point, and I will find that."

Nathan didn't say anything else for quite a while, before he spoke again, finally making eye contact as he asked, voice pathetic, "What are you going to do after you kill me?"

"To your corpse? Or just in general?" Mark questioned, then couldn't help himself but laugh again at the look on Nathan's face when he proffered up such a clarifying question, "Well, you can guess the answer to the first one, so I suppose you're asking the latter. Hm... I think, Max Caulfield. To honor your memory, since I know that you don't get along."

Nathan grimaced, "It has nothing to do with us not getting along. She's just naive and innocent, right? I mean, one look at her could tell anyone that she's a virgin..." He shut his eyes again, "...Whatever. Just leave Victoria alone, okay? Never touch her. Even if she says she wants you to. Never."

"Controlling much?" Mark leaned in closer, pressing his cheek against Nathan's with a suffocating pressure, "Ah, it's a shame it had to come to this, Nathan. You could have prevented this, had you been a good boy. You really could have become _just_ like me. In all ways, even to the point of being just as successful. Like your daddy wanted when he let me have you. I bet he thought you'd be better off away from him. That I would never do the same things to you that he did. He underestimated just how much of a temptress you are, Nathan..."

"What's he gonna say, when he finds out you killed me?" Nathan asked, trying to move away but finding himself thoroughly pinned.

Mark pulled away again to look down on him, "I'll burn that bridge when I get to it. I can't imagine he'll care, though. I'd be shocked if anybody did. Even Victoria... She was acting just the same as always, today. If I hadn't broken your phone, could you imagine that she even texted wondering where you were?"

"You're a liar," Nathan shook his head, "I know nobody else would give a damn, but Victoria does. She's the only one who ever has and the only one who ever will!"

"Maybe she will, for a little while," Mark shrugged, "But you know how girls like her are. Affections are fleeting. She'll be much too busy joining me in San Francisco after I award her the win for the Everyday Heroes contest to care about you anymore."

"You're still doing that?" Nathan asked.

"Why wouldn't I?" Mark questioned back, "Don't worry. I'll leave you a can opener," With that, he leaned in once more, "Enough stalling, okay?"


	6. You tried to cry, put on a smile

Chloe was reluctant to do it, but she helped. She helped look for Nathan, first by making fliers. They were in the exact same format as the fliers for Rachel Amber's disappearance, to try and draw people to the connection. That was Victoria's idea. Considering the working theory that they were going off of, it made sense, Chloe had to admit. This subtle indication that they suspected a connection between the disappearances could help to put pressure on the culprit.

While making the posters, they'd worked out a plan, too. Chloe took efforts to include David as well, and though he never indicated that he was actually going to do any of it out of a coy avoidance of endorsing putting Chloe in danger, he would do it. She was sure. He was going to go and try to get into the bunker again on Friday night, while Jefferson was busy announcing the winner of the Everyday Heroes contest.

Victoria knew he'd give it to her. In part, because Max hadn't entered, and in part because she realized she had made herself into an easy target. Victoria receiving the prize was an important part of the plan, too. The idea was that Chloe would go along with David as backup there, while Max would be at the announcement. Not to mention, Kate and Warren would also be present if things went ugly, somehow.

The plan was airtight, Chloe had to admit. Well, of course it was. She had put her rebellious streak and cleverness together with Victoria's grating raw intelligence and Max's general ingenuity. With that combination, there was no way that their plan could fail. So she thought, but what was it that Helmuth von Moltke said? No plan ever survived first contact with the enemy.

\----

The bass was pounding in her ears. Parties were nothing new to Victoria, they never had been. This one was taking place at the school's pool, which was a little different than what she was used to, but the overwhelming music wasn't anything that she hadn't experienced dozens of times before. The number of people... Even the alcohol, because Blackwell Students would be damned if they weren't getting drunk on a Friday night, even under the present threat of adult supervision.

It was easy enough to hide flasks and nips, and Victoria could tell that those things were being poured into cups of punch. She would have done the same herself, but for things to go right tonight, she knew that she couldn't afford to be anything but fully cognitive and sober. She had to be able to speak with confidence and eloquence, and think fast when something inevitably did go wrong.

So it was that she, Max, Kate, and Warren were the only people at the entire Vortex-sponsored party who weren't under the influence of anything. Victoria was even at least a little certain that the group of 'would be dropouts at anything but an art school' students were passing a bowl, smoking up in a back corner when nobody was looking. It felt like shit to be the one sober person in this sort of environment.

It was this that made Victoria realize just how it was possible for somebody to hate parties. She'd enjoyed them a majority of the time, it was an excuse to get drunk without feeling pathetic about it. Without any influence on her system, though, she found herself miserable. This music was too loud. These people were too loud. They were all so _happy_.

It was like, even with the posters, none of them really realized that Nathan was still missing. Or maybe they just didn't care. Nobody ever really cared about him, did they? Everyone just used him. The people who claimed to be his friends just wanted the drugs that he could get them. Victoria was his only real friend, and she couldn't do anything for him on her own. She needed to recruit Max and Chloe... But at least those two were always honest about their opinions on Nathan. They didn't like him, and they didn't like her, and they never tried to say otherwise.

She appreciated that honesty.

It didn't mean that she could necessarily _trust_ Max and Chloe, or Warren, but she could trust them with this. They didn't have any investment in Nathan's well-being, none at all. They disliked him and they didn't want anything from him, so it really was out of a real concern that they agreed to help her find him. That, and justice for Rachel Amber. Victoria was okay with that.

The biggest concern that she had, as she sipped her unfortunately virginal plastic cup of punch, wasn't that the plan would go horribly awry. It probably would, and they'd work out a solution to that, too. The concern that Victoria had brewing in her heart was the idea that half a week was still too long. Just a few days was plenty for a twisted man to do as he liked and dispose of the victim.

Despite never having been the victim of anybody terrible before, Victoria was still a child of money, even as a child of new money she'd seen the sorts of things that bad people were capable of. When Nathan first opened up to her about his home life, about Sean, she was shocked, sure... But she wasn't surprised that Sean had gotten away with it. Twisted men and women came in every walk of life, but they were much more brazen and much less likely to be reprimanded when they had money, power, or both.

Jefferson was a terrible mix. He didn't come from money, so he had the air of desperation that he needed to cover his tracks, but he had the power to have confidence he would never have to own up to consequences as long as all that he had levied against him was soft evidence, testimonies from confused youth who had every reason to lie about him if they'd done badly in his class. So he'd use that desperation to eliminate any hard evidence.

Nathan Prescott was hard evidence.

Victoria didn't think a court would take a testimony from Nathan at face value. Even with his name and his money behind him. He was on too many medications to be easily believed by a jury of his 'peers', who would nonetheless be adults, likely older than he and Victoria.

The selection process, discarding 'conflicts of interest' would insure that none of them would understand. However, Victoria also knew that as things stood, a testimony from Nathan wasn't important. He himself was hard evidence. It was unsettling to think about, terrible to even entertain the thought, but his body would show all the evidence anyone could need to realize Jefferson's wrongdoings. That, and the bunker...

When Chloe told Victoria about that bunker, about David's theory that Nathan could be there, Victoria wanted to go straight there and break into the place herself, but it wasn't as simple as picking the lock on a door with a bobby-pin. For an average teen to make it inside, they'd have to have all the time in the world; Plus, a lot of luck on their side. Victoria thought of herself as above average, but those criteria still applied. It wasn't like she'd ever done anything like it before.

"Victoria?" Max's voice broke her out of her fugue state, and she turned her head to see a look of utter, unadulterated concern on her twee classmate's face, "Hey, uh. You're crying in your punch. Are you scared?"

Victoria hesitated, then wiped her eyes and nodded, "Not for me. I'm just... Well, what if these couple of days have already been too much? What if we get into that bunker, and Nathan's already dead?"

Max didn't know what to say at first, grappling for the right words to say, for something, anything that would reassure Victoria. What could she say? She found a few words. They probably weren't right, but she had to give them a try, "Then we'll still take Jefferson down. He won't hurt anyone ever again, and you can start trying to heal. Just like Chloe's got to do with the truth about Rachel Amber. It's still a greater-than-zero outcome, even if it isn't amazing."

"You're right," Victoria mumbled, looking back down at the hot-pink liquid floating limp in her cup, a lifeless blend of fruit punch and something loaded with too many chemicals, likely branded by the supermarket, "I know you are, but I can't stop my feelings. Hell, would you even ask me to?"

"No," Max said, then gave a slow blink before she turned her attention to the platform where the announcement of the Everyday Heroes Contest Winner would be made, "Victoria, are you okay to do this? I understand if you're not. It's a lot, and it can't be easy. I know I couldn't do it."

"If it were Chloe in that bunker," Victoria stated, looking Max directly in the eyes, "Then you could."

Max took a step backwards, but then nodded, closing her eyes, "When you put it that way... You're right. It wouldn't be easy, but I'd do it for Chloe. You really do care about Nathan. How long have you known each other anyway?"

"About three years, I'd say," Victoria's tone switched to a more casual one, glad to change the subject, "It's tough to know exactly. Well, whenever Chloe was attending Blackwell, we were already friends. I guess we met at a Vortex Club party and it just went from there... When we met doesn't matter much, anyway. We're best friends who need each other, you know. Our hearts are connected," As she said this, she stirred the punch with her pinkie finger.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Max asked, "Are you in love with him?"

" _In_ love? No, there isn't, has never been, and never will be anything romantic between us. Rather, we're _platonic_ soulmates. Even if we only met yesterday, I'd care just as much, because that's just how things are and always have been between us. Even if I don't show it much," Victoria explained, pulling her finger from the punch and slipping it into her mouth so it wouldn't stay sticky. She continued after removing it, "I'm not sure I'm capable of real romantic love, and Nathan's, well, Nathan. He only sleeps with girls to try and forget. It's what you'd call an unhealthy coping mechanism," She shrugged, "If he could get over the shit that's happened to him and get in touch with his real feelings, he'd probably be gay. Hard to think about liking men when men have only ever hurt him, though, you get it?"

"I'm not sure that I do," Max admitted, "But I'll take your word for it, Victoria. You know him better than anybody else, after all."

Victoria couldn't help but smirk back at Max, "Yes, that's right. And don't you ever forget it."

"I can promise you that I won't," Max understood the implication behind that. Victoria was warning her not to make the same mistake that she almost had earlier in that week; Trusting conjecture from Chloe over fact from Victoria. Trusting Chloe wasn't something that could really be held against her, but trusting that Chloe was more correct than Victoria when it came to Nathan would have been a mistake.

And, she realized, she'd happened upon a secret within that statement and Victoria's reply. Victoria knew him better than anybody did, even himself. She carried with her all of his secrets and his emotions, even when he couldn't handle holding onto them himself.

"Okay, everybody!" Mark Jefferson's detestable voice filled up the school gym. The microphone was set to the same volume that the music had been, but that created a loud squeal of feedback. He frowned, and the audio guys adjusted both the fader and the gain, seeming not to have bothered testing it for a reasonable range beforehand, "I'm Mark Jefferson, as you all certainly know, and I'm going to be announcing the winners of the Everyday Heroes photography contest! Now, this contest was open to everyone, not just photography majors, so we had some real dark horses in the running..."

Victoria fidgeted where she stood, watching him. She hadn't seen him at all since she started suspecting him, and it took everything she had not to have an immediate reaction. She'd skipped his class every single day since her first inkling of suspicion, and time had only let that feeling stew. She squeezed her plastic cup just enough to make a crinkling noise, but otherwise kept her composure.

If she blew it here, then everything would become much more difficult. So she held her tongue as Mark continued to speak, "And as much as I loved every entry, and as much as I was disappointed that several of my students declined to enter their own pieces, among the ones I've been provided, there is a clear winner who'll be coming to San Francisco with me. That winner is Victoria Chase."

That was her cue. Legs gelatin while applause erupted around her, she made her way to the platform. As she stepped up, Mark clapped a hand against her back, between the shoulder blades. She couldn't help but shiver under his touch, feel bile rising in her throat at the very idea of what those same hands could have done to her best friend. Nathan was her best friend, and this incident had only made her more confident to call her that. She approached the microphone and reached out, fingertips hovering about an inch away, shaking.

"Well, go on. Say a few words, Victoria," Mark encouraged her, "You're always so eloquent, after all. Why don't you tell us about what inspired your photo?"

"No," Victoria said, shaking her head as she actually grabbed the microphone now, steeling her gaze as she stared at the light-gray head of it. It seemed like a cheap mic, but it served its purpose here, "What inspired my photo doesn't matter. Not right now. I'd rather talk about something else... Something else that everybody needs to hear. It's relevant, I swear to you, it's relevant."

She took a deep breath, getting her thoughts together, then continued, "The theme of this contest was Everyday Heroes. Ordinary people who have done extraordinary things. I'd like to thank my own Everyday Heroes," Victoria continued, keeping her voice level, "As I'm sure everybody knows, my best friend Nathan Prescott went missing earlier this week."

Mumbling broke out among the crowd. All that Victoria could pick out were a few comments that it seemed strange that they'd just seen him on Monday.

"So my everyday heroes..." Victoria said, "Are Brooke, and Warren, and Kate, and anybody else who's done even a little bit to try and help me find Nathan. And then there's Max Caulfield, and Chloe Price. And David Madsen," Victoria straightened up and spoke with conviction, "Who worked hard to help me figure out who kidnapped Nathan," Victoria lifted the microphone from its stand and turned, pointing the mouthpiece at Mark, "What do you have to say to that, Mark Jefferson?"

"I think it's very nice that you've been able to see the virtues in your peers-" Mark started to answer, but Victoria stepped away with one harsh movement. She kept her voice cool, though.

"Oh, Jefferson. Do you not realize what I'm implying?" She had a wild look in her eyes, but still her voice was calm, "You're the one responsible for my best friend's disappearance. Oh, and Rachel Amber's too, but she's dead now."

Chaos.

Chaos erupted in the school gym. People fell into the pool as everybody shoved around, voices blending together. Some disbelief, some condemnation. Mark stepped toward Victoria with a fury in his face that didn't seem to care about the number of witnesses, but that was why Max was here. She'd stood right next to the platform in case she needed to step in.

She climbed onto the platform and snatched at Mark's ankle with both hands. He turned that fury on her, curling his lip as he retrieved his foot from her grasp, then mashed his heel against her nose for good measure before he took off, but Max had achieved her goal. He was running from the scene, but that was okay. He didn't have many places to go.

If not for the bunker, then this incident would be forgotten in a week. Even a rich girl pointing fingers at a man so charming and beloved wouldn't be taken at face value once people calmed down, but this was only one part of the plan. Making a public scene was important, though. It would make sure that after the other group got the evidence they needed, Mark couldn't get off with a light sentence. This couldn't just be swept under the rug or settled on a weak plea bargain.

Maybe they didn't care about Nathan, but everybody had loved Rachel Amber. They'd demand justice, at least, for her. Not to mention, everyone who'd just spent a night kidnapped.

Victoria and Max regrouped, and had to hope that Chloe and David were having things go as smoothly on their end.

\-----

"Come on, David, haven't you ever hacked into a PIN pad before?" Chloe pushed past her stepdad to examine the numerical pad for herself, "What's taking so long?"

"It's not as simple as you make it sound," David griped back at her, but let her get at the pad. She glanced around, then had an idea.

"Hey!" She got his attention, pointing at the wall, "Hit that light for me?"

"Sure," He agreed, then went and shut off the light. Chloe pulled a flashlight from her pocket and shined it on the pinpad from the underside of it, squinting to see how it was reflecting. After examining it for a few minutes, she pressed five buttons. Then pressed five again, and one more time, then it confirmed itself. David looked over as he heard the door unlock, "How'd you do that?"

"You were in the military, then you were a security guard," Chloe stood back up and nodded that he could turn the light back on, "Never on a _police force_. So you don't know all the small crime tricks. If you can't see the smudges on a pinpad in normal lighting, sometimes changing the light source can do it."

"Normally I'd ask how you figured that out," David sighed, shaking his head as he approached the door, "But it turned out helpful in this case, so I guess I'll let it slide. You'd be grounded if we weren't in this situation, though. Anyway, you stay here."

"I know you want to protect me, but I think I'll be safer going inside with you than staying here. What if Jefferson comes back, and I'm just hanging out outside his secret bunker?" Chloe said.

"Good point," David relented, then motioned for Chloe to follow him as he made his way inside. It seemed that this was the final line of defense, because a room stretched out before them. They both couldn't help but grimace as they looked around.

There was camera equipment, and along the far wall were a line of binders. David zeroed in on those, walking right up and examining the names along the sides of them before he spoke up again, "These names.., God, there's even more than I thought."

"Holy shit," Chloe muttered, looking over David's shoulder, then stepped back to keep looking around, "Nathan's gotta be here somewhere. We can deal with the past later, this is more important right now."

"You're right," David said, then started looking as well. Then he saw it. On the set of white-screens with the camera equipment set up around it, Nathan was lying. At first glance he barely looked human. More like somebody had taken several sacks of potatos and draped a set of ruined clothing over them.

Chloe knew in an instant, though. While David had to process that the form before them really was a human, the human they were here to find, Chloe knew without even thinking about it. There was a certain aura to the form that she could only remember seeing once before; In the photograph taken of Nathan and Rachel Amber, drugged out of their minds.

There was something different here.

Chloe approached Nathan and crouched down, for once in her life having the discretion to use a gentle tone, "Hey. Nathan. You awake?"

She didn't ask if he was alive. He was. That was hardly a relief, though, looking at the state he was in. Chloe doubted that Victoria would feel much happiness at finding Nathan like _this_.

"Huh...?" Nathan questioned, trying to prop himself up on his elbows but failing. He chose to remain on the floor rather than trying again, "I heard you come in. I thought you were Jefferson. But you're..." He reached for an explanation and found none, so he went with his first instinct, "Chloe Price?"

"Bingo," Chloe said, staring at him. It was a thousand mile stare, empty but for a burning anger that wasn't directed anywhere she was looking. Her tone stayed soft even as the feeling went out of it, "So you can't stand? Are you... sober?"

"Two for two," Nathan mumbled, bitter, "How'd you guess?"

"You're a lot more tense than in the photo," Chloe stated, "You and Rachel Amber looked dead. Maybe by then, she was, huh? It was like all the muscles had been taken straight off of your bones. You're not doped out."

"I don't know," Nathan answered, not even trying to defend himself, "You saw, I guess. I was so out of it. But I knew she was dead..." Nathan tried to move again and managed to get into a weak kneeling position, as if he'd collapsed to the floor, "I'm so sorry I never told you. I'm sorry."

"You didn't. But you never told anyone, right?" Chloe pressed, locking eyes with him, "Saying it would get you in hot water. With the police, with your dad, with Jefferson? I bet he'd kill you even if you didn't explain how you knew. Not to mention the only way to clear yourself of blame would be..." Chloe gestured over his whole body, "Telling all about this, right?"

"You have every right to hate me for it," Nathan said, "Your reasons are true, but only a coward lets those sort of barriers stop him from doing what's right."

Chloe stared at him for a while, then shrugged, "For the past few years I've been gearing up to hate you. But now it's just Jefferson. I dunno how that happened, it's hella bizarre, but it's true. I still won't like you, probably ever, but I can't just hold this against you like it was your fault," Chloe explained, "I mean, it's not like you've ever been a 'doing what's right' type of guy as far as I can tell."

"Chloe-" Nathan started, but she cut him off.

"I used to think you were a 'doing what's wrong' type of guy, but now? I can see you're more of a 'doing what you have to for survival' type of guy. And, really, what's wrong with that? I mean, it's the same type of person I am," Chloe said, starting to stand back up, "Besides. How could I bring myself to hate you when you've suffered the same as she did? Or, when she liked you so much? I just have to accept it. I just have one thing to ask of you, Prescott."

"What?" Nathan asked.

"Once all of this is over, you and Victoria will stay away from me and Max. Even though we're all on the same side right now, you guys have been fucking assholes for a while now, so there's no way we could ever be friends. But after what we're doing for you, there's no way you'll go back to being dicks to us again, right? Pretty easy favor," Chloe turned her attention to David, "Hey, David. He can't stand on his own, you're strong and stuff, right?"

"I most certainly am," David confirmed, then stepped closer and crouched down, "Nathan, I'm going to put your arm over my shoulder and support your weight. Is that okay?"

"Yeah," Nathan nodded, and David did just as he said he was going to. It was rough, but he got Nathan to his feet. Chloe stepped in on the other side just to offer some extra support on the right, though she was a lot smaller than David and couldn't be of much use with keeping Nathan upright, she could at least steady him a bit, "Thanks, you guys...."

Nathan was much too miserable right now to even think about the repercussions, or how these two had even found him. Apparently Max and Victoria were also involved, though he couldn't even begin to theorize on that either. He was altogether just grateful to be getting out of that bunker.

The gratitude faded away when the three got back to the outside world, though. Mark Jefferson was seated atop the hood of David's car, visible the moment they left the barn. He fixed them, all at once, with a hard stare as he spoke, "Nathan Prescott. Go back inside right now."

"He doesn't have to listen to you anymore," Chloe glared back, "It's over, Jefferson. It's all over now."

"Is it over? It doesn't have to be," Mark clicked his tongue, "I was going to move on to a new town once I was finished with Nathan anyway. I know you aren't fond of him, just let me do that and then I'll be out of your hair," He tilted his head and let a slight smile onto his face, "Or, you know, I'm not entirely opposed to killing a few more people just to cover my tracks."

"There's nowhere you could run to," Chloe said, "Victoria and Max made sure of that. Anything happens now, you'll be the number one suspect. Just give up."

"Victoria and Max?" Mark questioned, then pulled a gun from his jacket and pointed it toward Chloe, "Madsen, pull your gun and I shoot. Anyway, those two didn't do anything. I caught wind of your little plan, and disposed of _them_ before they could do anything to expose me. So how's this sound for a headline? Veteran security guard's PTSD goes haywire, he shoots and kills several students, then himself?"

"You're bluffing," Chloe accused, though there was panic creeping into her voice, "David, he's bluffing!"

"How would you know if I was? There's no cell service up here," Mark continued, "So, really, you have two options here, regardless of if I'm telling the truth. Give me Nathan. Go back to town. Find your friends, or don't. And leave me be," He popped his wrist with a slight movement of the handgun he still had trained on Chloe, "Or, you all end up dead with that coverup. I know that _Sean_ would help me do it. Don't you think so, Nathan?"

Nathan didn't answer.

Mark pressed the trigger partially, but not enough to fire the gun, staring at Nathan now, "I said, don't you think so, Nathan?"

"A week ago I would've said no, since both plans involve killing me," Nathan forced an answer, "But I don't think Sean would want you to give me back to him _now_ , so if he's not too mad you did this to begin with, sure. He probably would. But that's not going to happen. Neither of your options."

"And how are you going to stop me? You wouldn't let your savior, Chloe Price, just die... Or would you? You certainly didn't stop me when it came to Rachel Amber," Mark continued taunting, now watching only Nathan and David rather than all three.

"I've let bad things happen... I've watched you do terrible things, helped you do terrible things, for too long. Too goddamn long. Why should I have ever been afraid of you if all along, you were going to just break me and kill me when you got sick of it all?" Nathan spat, "S-Something has to go right, for once. Something good has to happen."

"You don't even have a plan? You're just saying things..." Mark narrowed his eyes, scowling, "I'd pick my words more carefully if I were you. Any of them could be your last."

Nathan spotted something, behind Jefferson, somewhere. He locked eyes with the man, a hard glare that carried all of his anguish and hatred from over the years, "I could say the same to you."

In that moment, there was a flash of bright light from somewhere to Nathan's left, and another from behind Mark. With it came sounds, sounds that cut right through the fog in Nathan's sober condition, through the nonsensical sounds that tried and somehow failed to drown of Mark's taunting. There was a loud bang. Then a loud cry of pain. The first one was not from Mark's gun. The second was from Mark's mouth, not Chloe's. He dropped the gun and clutched at his shoulder, curling forward.

Victoria Chase stepped around from behind the car.

Max Caulfield stepped out of the bushes to Nathan's left side, polaroid developing between her thumb and index finger.

"Holy shit, Mad Max," Chloe hissed at her through clenched teeth, in awe, "How'd you two coordinate that?"

"Very carefully, but quickly," Victoria answered, handing the gun she held over to David before she turned to look at Mark, "Hey, Jefferson. Did you really think I was stupid enough to leave the rest up to _these_ goons?" Victoria pointed a thumb towards Nathan, Chloe, and David, "We followed in case something went wrong."

"Jesus Christ, Chase..." Mark said, gritting his teeth with his eyes squeezed shut to try and ignore the pain, "Didn't think you had it in you?"

"You knew," Victoria said, "You didn't think Nathan had it in him. That's why you gave him that gun I used, right? To prove to him that you thought he could never fight back?"

"How the Hell did you figure that out?" Mark questioned, not even trying to deny it.

"The same way I figured out that it was you. I may be an art student without as many book smarts as others, but if there's one thing I'm a genius about, it's Nathan Prescott, understand?" Victoria stepped right up to him and grabbed him by the chin, digging her fingernails in, "He is my best friend. And it may have taken me a bit longer than I would have liked, but I will find anyone who hurts him, they will have Hell to pay. And I'll gladly be the devil who makes sure of that. So here's what you do. You turn yourself in for everything. Take full responsibility. Nathan was no accomplice of yours, just an innocent victim. Or I swear, Mark Jefferson, I will do to you every goddamn thing you did to him and more. And you won't like it."

"Why should I be afraid of you? You only managed to shoot me because you had the element of sur-" He found himself cut off by Victoria's fingernails drawing blood.

Victoria just stared him down, unflinching, "I shot you because you made my best friend disappear. And I'm sure once I find out just how much you've hurt him, I'll hate you even more. I would have killed you. That would have made everything much more complicated, though. I think that the best option for everyone is for you to confess and take a plea bargain. Now, we'll be taking you straight to the police. If you'll take my mercy is up to you."

Something about the way that Victoria looked at him, Mark knew she was dead serious. Max Caulfield had the photo of him holding a gun on Chloe, with Nathan so recently battered. All that a public trial would do was show off his true nature to the world, and give him a chance to take Nathan down with him. He didn't want to take Nathan down with him, though. _Nathan_ in prison? The whole point of this week had been to claim him as his alone, then kill him so nobody else could stake a claim. That would just undo all of his hard work, Mark decided. He sighed, "Fine. I'll do it. You win."

"I wouldn't call it a win," Chloe said, "I mean, Nathan's still fucked up and Rachel Amber's still dead. We didn't _win_ anything, but we still beat you, asshole. How's that feel, losing to a bunch of losers?"

"It feels like this couldn't have ended any other way," Mark admitted, "It was my own mistake, thinking that Nathan was a safe choice. He was. The people around him weren't. I'll have to keep that in mind if, by some mad chance, I get the opportunity to try this sort of thing again."

"You make this really easy, you know," Max noted, "I can't even feel bad for you."

"Good," Mark said as David walked over and grabbed him by the uninjured arm to get him in the car, "I can't see any reason I would want to be pitied by you."


	7. White white leaves, of an Oleander

Victoria appointed herself as the official arbiter of Nathan’s fate, once he was in the hospital room. She didn’t stay inside with him at first, imagining that he would be unsettled by her presence while he slept off the misery, handling recovery from his injuries and withdrawal from the drugs all at the same time. He’d rather be as alone as possible. Instead, Victoria brought a folding chair from the back of Nathan’s pickup and set it down in the hallway, right outside the door of his room, where there weren’t any chairs. Someone asked her to leave. She shut them down without a second thought. She could intimidate Mark Jefferson, after all. These jokers were nothing. That, and she had cash to flash. A combination of threats and bribery could get you far in life.

Most of the time, she wanted to avoid being that sort of person. While she might use her family’s money for material things, she wanted to do well on her own merits and succeed with her skills, not with her money or her family’s name. She wanted to be the new money daughter, or parents who were already new money, and that included not paying anybody off to get ahead. When it came to Nathan, however, all bets were off. Victoria would kill for him. A few bribes? That was nothing.

Keeping him safe was all that mattered, and through Victoria went every nurse and doctor. She watched them closely for any sign of incompetence, or anger, or anything of the sort. Anything which could imply that those who were going to tend to her best friend would fail at their job in any way, make him uncomfortable or give him the wrong treatment that he needed. Victoria might not know anything about medicine, but she could at least watch the people closely. She’d only turned one nurse away, for looking anemic. He returned later, appearing rosier, and she assumed that he’d gotten something to eat and was functioning at full capacity again.

What was more important for Victoria was getting rid of anybody who attempted to pay Nathan a visit. Despite the front desk letting people up, ignoring any pretense of privacy since Mark’s confession at the police station spread like wildfire. Everybody in Arcadia Bay knew what had happened, and it shook them to their core, but not enough to make them keep their noses out of things which didn’t concern them.

Nathan was in no condition even to have Victoria around, let alone classmates who only cared about him when it was convenient to them. What started off as begrudging respect and sucking up to their school’s usual drug dealer had distorted into the kind of pity that cut right through somebody. The feeling of, ‘I never would have guessed he was going through that’. The feeling that you didn’t know somebody at all and now there they were, having the worst time you could imagine, and maybe you were wrong about what type of person they were because they experienced this where you couldn’t see it.

Victoria had decided that she wouldn’t enable those types of people. They didn’t need to see firsthand how wrong they were about Nathan, because how could somebody actually be wrong about a person? Those others didn’t see Nathan the way Victoria did, but that didn’t mean that they were actually wrong about him. Plenty of those people based their opinions on actual interactions with him, conversations that did happen and asshole things that he did do.

It wasn’t like most people outside of maybe _Chloe_ had actually condemned the guy as evil and malicious without any possible reason behind it, and that one person had already realized she was wrong. Well, Victoria thought for a moment, then disregarded her thought that Warren also may have been wrong. Nathan did beat that guy up at least once, and that was about as bitter as Warren was toward him.

Victoria didn’t like thinking that Nathan would be excused from being a dick just because of what had been happening to him. She considered him the most important person in her life, acknowledging that he was also a dick. Just like she acknowledged in herself that she was a bitch, but didn’t let that stand in the way of letting people understand who she was on a deeper level. She wouldn’t want to have her own behavior brushed aside if it turned out that she had been kidnapped, raped, and damn near murdered. Those were things which happened to people, not reflections of who a person was.

And mental illness could serve as an explanation for bad behavior, but never as an excuse. Victoria took Nathan as he was, for all he had to bring to the table, warts and all. She didn’t want anybody else to do that without thinking critically about it. She took him as he was _because_ she was a bitch and he was a dick. She could handle him, and she could cut through his bullshit, and _then_ was when she could begin to understand the pain that shaped him into the disaster he was today.

It was her right to do that. She had been here for him. She understood that he was broken, maybe beyond repair, and she understood that it would show through and become a challenge for him, and she’d take that challenge onto her shoulders too because she cared about him. She couldn’t fix him, nobody could fix anybody else, but she could do her best to hold the pieces in place while he tried to glue them back together.

It was finally time for him to recover.

And Victoria fell asleep at her post, but anytime anyone wanted to see Nathan, they were kind enough to gently wake her and ask permission before she drifted off again. Now it was time for Nathan to start getting better. And it was time for Victoria to take a break from worrying, and get some rest.

\--

It took a week and a half before Nathan asked if he could see Victoria. He asked one of the doctors, if Victoria could come in and see him, and the doctor did not know the girl outside was named Victoria and did not know how Nathan knew that she was there, but the doctor knew that the girl outside had to be the Victoria to which Nathan referred and he sent her in.

Victoria sat at the edge of the bed with her legs crossed and toes entirely pointed forward as she twisted to her right at the waist to look at Nathan’s face, staring at him wordlessly, because what was she supposed to say? What were either of them supposed to say at a time like this when Nathan had expected fully to die at the time his secrets had been laid bare. There was guilt on both sides, Nathan for never telling Victoria the truth and Victoria for all number of things, for being attracted to the man who made Nathan’s life a living Hell, for never finding out the truth, for almost failing to save him and needing to rely on Max and Chloe to help her get the job done.

“How’d you ever find me?” Nathan found a way to break the silence.

“It was a team effort,” Victoria said simply, “Jefferson knew I was sniffing around for you, of course he would. So he sent that photo to Chloe, hoping it would convince her that you were Rachel Amber’s killer. It almost worked, too, but apparently Kate Marsh thought there was something off and decided to ask me about it. I already had a sinking feeling, but that photo confirmed it. Your eyes were the same as hers were in that video, you know.”

“Kate…” Nathan trailed off, lifting a hand to cover his mouth as he squeezed his eyes shut.

“I know all about that,” Victoria said, “I made the mistake of actually looking through those binders. She was the last one before Jefferson decided to take you, right? So what exactly prompted that?”

“I disobeyed him,” Nathan answered, “I told him… I’d do anything, to keep him from taking _you_ to the Dark Room. You were supposed to be the next target. I wanted to make him leave you alone, but he lied to me anyway. He said that after I was dead, he’d go after you, and he’d go after Max, too. I dunno why he thought I’d care that she’d be next. I dunno why I did care.”

“Well, _we’re_ Max’s bullies, aren’t we?” Victoria said, “We care about her in our own way. We’re the ones allowed to torment her, not Jefferson. Honestly, though, Nathan. We really need to rethink our friendship a bit. If we’re both willing to die for each other, what’s to keep us from both ending up dead? Just let me die for you, you don’t have to do the same.”

“I’d rather die for you than let you die for me,” Nathan said.

“Then it appears we are at an impasse,” Victoria said and uncrossed her legs, placing a hand out behind her on the other side of Nathan to lean back over him, looking up at the ceiling of the hospital room, “You very nearly died, though, and you were certainly injured beyond reasonability. Can’t we just say that you tried to die for me here, so now it’s my turn?”

“I guess that’s okay,” Nathan said, “But I can’t speak for what I’d do in the moment you were in danger.”

“What are you and I ever to do?” Victoria asked, shrugging her shoulders, “When we both get lovers? Wouldn’t they be jealous we would die for each other, but not for them? Because I truly cannot imagine any lover outranking you in my life. Were my supposed future husband or wife to hang off the edge of a cliff, and you as well, it would break my heart to do so but I would have to save you first.”

“Now you’re getting all poetic and shit…” Nathan mumbled, “But I guess you’re right. Even though it’s impossible for us to fall in love, we’re always going to be the most important people in each other’s lives. That’s never going to change. It’s just the way things are… Hey, though, we can’t torment Max anymore. Chloe said the requirement for helping to get me outta there was that we stay away from her and Max.”

“That’s not hard,” Victoria said, “It would feel morally bankrupt anyhow, to continue behaving that way towards somebody who did help to save your life. It would feel wrong.”

“Yeah,” Nathan agreed, “It would.”

“Maybe we should behave better in general,” Victoria noted, “Nobody’s going to think we’re cool now. They’re going to pity you forever. And they’re already afraid of me. They know I threatened Jefferson into turning himself in. That was a part of me I never really understood before. It came in handy with the doctors, too. I guess we could say I have incredibly harsh Mama Bear instincts.”

“Well,” Nathan said, “I don’t really know any other way to act. I’m sure as Hell not about to lean into the pity.”

“I won’t let anyone be controlled by that pity,” Victoria said, “Trust me. I’ll make sure nobody goes the pathetic route of thinking they were oh-so-wrong about you, because they weren’t wrong, they just didn’t and had no reason to know that information about you. It isn’t like the ‘version’ of you that they ‘thought they knew’ wasn’t genuine too.”

“You know me so well,” Nathan chuckled a bit, “Damn, it’d fucking suck to have everybody thinking that just because they know my business now I was putting on an act. I mean, come on, I was never mentally stable enough to think through actually putting on an act, my shit just didn’t have a real reason to come out around big groups of people most of the time. Doesn’t mean I was pretending the shit wasn’t there. Plenty of people witnessed shitty outbursts, yeah?”

“You’re just such a misunderstood baby because you’re mentally ill and traumatized honey,” Victoria put on a mock patronizing tone, then burst out laughing, “Good grief. You’re still an asshole. Just like if I _had_ been taken to the Dark Room, I’d still be a bitch. It’s who we are, and some other part of who we are isn’t about to erase that one. It’s fine if people reevaluate what it was they disliked about you. It’s fine if people think that never should have happened to you, because it shouldnt have. But it’s not fine if people think that any aspect of you as a human being is actually different now. There are people who think that what’s happened to you, not who you are, is what defines you.”

“They’re idiots,” Nathan said, “I know you got Mark… You got Jefferson to lie for me. If what happened to me makes me a better person, the shit I’ve done is bad enough to balance it out. Just cause I wasn’t a willing accomplice doesn’t mean I’m not guilty. I could have refused sooner. I just didn’t care enough to, until you were on the line.”

“You knew this was going to happen if you did, though, right?” Victoria prodded, “You aren’t a virtuous soul, Nathan, and nobody ever thought you were. If anyone knew the truth behind why this happened, chances are they’d be surprised that you even put yourself on the line for _me_. Nobody would expect you to have done this for Kate, or Rachel Amber, or anybody.”

“Rachel Amber wasn’t supposed to die,” Nathan said, “The only person Jefferson ever _wanted_ to kill was me. I screwed up. It was my mistake that made her die.”

“And is that supposed to change how I feel?” Victoria asked, “If you turn your back on the idea of being a good person, all that matters is what you care about. There are plenty of people who can do that, like us, who don’t do anything bad because of it. If your restraint from doing horrible things is only because you don’t want to be thought of as a bad person, you’ll end up doing those things eventually. Most people just don’t even think of doing disgusting things, just unpleasant ones. I don’t mind becoming unpleasant. Why should I? And an unpleasant thing is manslaughter, and forgiving manslaughter. So that’s just fine. But never tell Chloe Price, okay?”

“Of course not,” Nathan said, “I… I don’t want to die.”

“Good to hear,” Victoria said, “I don’t want you to die. So you had better not, you hear me? Don’t you dare.”

“I’ll hold on a while longer. Don’t know what I’ll do, though,” Nathan shrugged where he lay, “I can’t imagine Sean’s got any intention of putting up tuition or anything now. Do I even still wanna go into photography?”

“You do,” Victoria said, “Your own style, when you aren’t trying to imitate Jefferson, it’s stunning. Whoever we get as a replacement teacher will surely agree with me. And you’ll still attend Blackwell, of course. I’m not afraid to use my parents’ money, you know. For anything but getting a leg up in the game that I haven’t earned myself. They’ll cover your tuition, though. After all, you’re my best friend, and you have promise as an artist. They said so themselves.”

“You’re right,” Nathan said, “But I can’t-”

“You can, Nathan,” Victoria said, “It’s about time that you got something for nothing, you know. That _is_ one thing people got wrong about you, that you’re a spoiled rich boy who never had to work for anything. But your whole life you’ve never got something for nothing. Even if the connection was never made. Now that you’re of no use in Sean’s eyes, he won’t give you anything. Everything he ever gave you was payment for what he made you do for him, as far as he was concerned. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” Nathan said, “When you put it that way, it’s hard to deny.”

“So let this be your first real gift,” Victoria said, “As far as I’m concerned, you deserve it. Does it matter as far as anybody else is concerned?”

“I guess not,” Nathan admitted, “Thanks, Victoria.”

“Not a problem,” She said, “Now, I can only hold back people who want to visit you so much, you know. Do you want me to allow anyone through?”

“Only if you think they have a good reason to be visiting,” Nathan said.

“I can handle that much,” A smile spread across her face, “If _I_ think they have a good reason, well then, you’re likely opening yourself up to some rather strange visits.”

“Well, I obviously don’t want typical visits,” Nathan said, “So I’ll trust you with this. Just like always.”

“Someday, you know,” Victoria stood up, “It will be the other way around. I don’t know when, but I’m certain that I will someday experience falling apart. I’ll rely on you then, the way you’re relying on me now. Okay?”

“Okay,” Nathan confirmed.

\--

The first visitor that Victoria allowed into the hospital room was somebody who she wasn't expecting, but wasn't about to turn away either. When Kate Marsh walked up the hallway, Victoria accosted her without a second thought, "Please tell me you're not here to pray for him."

"If it were anybody else, then I would be here to pray for them," Kate said, "But not with Nathan. I'm here to give him a piece of my mind."

"Oh, I see," Victoria noted, a slight smirk curling at the corners of her lips, "I did tell him it would be a strange time, if he gave me the authority to decide who was allowed to visit. I said I wouldn't let in anybody who was just here to pity him. But I can see that you're far from that. I'd tell you to go easy on him, but I don't believe you are capable of going hard on him anyhow. I think that whatever you have to say to him won't actually hurt him, but it's not some dumb rhetoric either. Please, go on ahead. Prove me right."

With that, Kate gave Victoria a short nod in thanks, then stepped past her and into Nathan's hospital room. She pulled up the chair next to the bed and sat down in silence, and Nathan didn't dare to break it either, letting the lack of words between them speak volumes about why Kate was here. When she finally did speak, it was to offer a true clarification to the intent which was already made clear by her body language, "Nathan. I can't believe you, you know."

"What about it, Kate?" Nathan asked.

"I know how you felt," Kate said, "Not to the same extent, but I felt it for a few moments, the morning after it happened. The morning after you helped him with me. I won't blame you for doing that, though, because I know that was just part of what was happening to you. I can blame you for how you coped with it, though. I felt the same way for a few minutes. You know what I did? I didn't behave badly or hurt anybody or anything like that. I took it out on inanimate objects and then I stopped. I didn't let any other living beings experience my frustration. So that's what I have to say to you! You've been a real _jerk_ and if you think that you're justified just because of what happened to you, I'm here to say that you're not! And I won't try and tell you to repent or become born again, or religious at all, but I want to tell you that you need to be a better person. You're better than this."

"You don't know that," Nathan said, "It's not just that I'm coping. I really do just have a shitty personality."

"Of course you do!" Kate said, "Because people with good personalities know not to do stuff like that, but with a bad personality you can still decide not to do bad things. Just find some other productive outlet..."

"Maybe that's possible for you, Kate," Nathan said, "But that's just because you were a good person to begin with. I don't have any reason to feel like I shouldn't be taking out my frustration on people, and I have so many more frustrations than you. You've got something grounding you and motivation to keep being good. I've never had anything like that. I just don't _care_ like you do."

"You could-" Kate started to protest.

"I won't," Nathan said, "And you can go and tell everybody else the same thing. I don't care about changing, so I won't. I'll just keep going about my life the way I always have, and if the fact that I'm free of him now makes me any less shitty, then so be it, but it's not something I'm trying to do. You won't convince me to do that, any more than you could ever convince me to become religious."

"Okay," Kate said, "Then, I guess, I'll have to go on disliking you."

"That's a good plan," Nathan said.

"Well, then," Kate said, giving him a short nod, "Goodbye. I'll forgive you, you know, but I don't think that I will end up having a favorable opinion of you. Surely, you can't blame me. In any case, I'll be leaving."

"I'll see you around," Nathan said, giving her a wave as she turned and left the room, leaving him alone once more. He decided that he did trust Victoria's judgment. Hearing what Kate had to say was important to him, if he was honest. Kate was one of the people he'd hurt most recently, and she could have felt like her anger was no longer justified when she heard about the overarching situation. Instead, she decided not to throttle her emotions, and let Nathan know how she legitimately felt. He needed to hear that.

The fact that Kate was still mad at him, that she didn't just let his situation dictate her opinion, meant that there was some hope for other people too. Not like Nathan thought of Kate as somebody who, if she was capable of that, everybody should be; But he did have his misgivings that somebody who was that religious was willing to believe and follow whatever she was told. Her self-agency was reassuring, in a way.

Kate, meanwhile, left the hospital. She didn't have anybody else to visit here, she just came by to talk to Nathan. She didn't know why it was so important to her that she did speak to him, but it gave her a sense of clarity. She'd felt lost and confused, not knowing where to place her anger when she heard that it wasn't actually Nathan's fault, what happened to her. She lacked most of her memory. She just experienced the aftermath, and a video of a portion of what happened while she was drugged. Her own suffering felt like the tiniest fraction of what the news had spread was Nathan's experience. What Jefferson did to him. How he was an unwitting accomplice. Kate didn't know how to process those feelings at first, but she sorted them out as she went, as she talked to him.

Nathan was an unwitting accomplice, sure, Kate wouldn't doubt that fact. But Kate also doubted that if she was in the same position, she ever would have agreed. She would have rathered death to aiding and abetting the pain and suffering of other people. When it came to Nathan, he would only choose death when somebody he personally cared about was on the line. So he was still a bad person. Kate couldn't in good conscience continue to blame him for anything, but she could still be mad at him for being a bad person. Just because somebody turned out to have a tragic situation didn't mean that she needed to erase her previous ideas about that person.

There was no reason that she ought to associate with him in the future. It was the same as things had always been. When she was done studying at Blackwell, then Kate would never need to see him again. He was not a legitimate part of her life. He never should have been, and he never would be again. In a decade, she'd hardly remember him.

\---

Max Caulfield knew that Nathan saved her.

Not that he was trying to save her, he was trying to save Victoria. Even so, there were those binders. She and Victoria both made the mistake of looking for long enough to see the binders labeled with their names. Empty binders. Binders in preparation. Max was going to be a victim of the dark room soon, and Nathan's kidnapping had prevented that. No, more likely, it had postponed it. Max doubted that Jefferson would ever keep his word. Max doubted that Jefferson would have stopped. If he was planning to photograph Max, that wasn't about to change just because he killed Nathan Prescott first.

Even so, Max felt, there had to be something of worth there. She and Nathan had traded. He saved her by getting himself into that mess, and she saved him by getting him out of it. All in all, things seemed to have worked out okay in the end. Working together on that, Chloe and David finally got over the first and strongest barrier that was keeping them from living peacefully in the same house. It would be a long time coming until they actually saw each other as family, Max could tell, but it would come. Eventually. It likely would have even if they didn't have to team up to defeat a great evil, sure, but it helped.

And, Max hoped, that thanks to her help Nathan and Victoria might see fit to at least leave her alone back in school, whenever Nathan returned. If they would even get the opportunity not to leave anybody alone. Max was a little worried with how public the story had become. Just because they'd caused her grief before, didn't mean she wanted the tables to be turned, for Nathan to be the one who came under scrutiny or anything like that.

Maybe she was just a bleeding heart, to hope that her bullies didn't get bullied, but if that made her a bleeding heart then Max didn't want to be... Well, whatever the opposite was. A bloodless heart? Honestly, that phrase was a bit of a tough one to subvert, she realized. Though if anything made her a bleeding heart, it wasn't that. It was the fact that she was now standing outside the hospital. It took some convincing to make Chloe drive her here, after all, Chloe didn't think that either of them should ever interact with those two again. Even so, Max was able to make her own decision, and that decision was to come and see Nathan.

This might just be the last time that she ever spoke to him, but she would make _this_ the last time, not before. Not when she had to see him in that state, in a stand-off when he could hardly even physically stand, himself. Max would never want somebody to be immortalized in her mind that way. She needed to see him one more time out of respect for him, because Max had always respected him, and Victoria, no matter how they behaved toward her. She respected them for their abilities, and even for their personalities. Max could hardly even handle saying anything mean to anybody, at least, not when there could be consequences. Even when she occasionally played video games, picking the mean dialogue options still left her uneasy. As much as it was technically a bad thing, Max had to admire that those two had the ability to own those parts of themselves. She could never do that.

And that was the basis of Max's respect for somebody. If they were capable of something she wasn't, if they were able to do something that she could but it was a good skill, Max had to respect ability. Not that she didn't have a base level of respect for people, but respect in _spite_ of other factors was built on the skills that she perceived in them.

Max took a deep breath, then stepped forward and walked up to the front desk. She got a visitor pass, then went to the proper floor, and as she was walking down the hallway toward the room, before she was even ten feet away, Victoria called down the hall to her, "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to see Nathan," Max said, continuing to walk.

"I thought that Chloe said the cost of your help was that we stay away from you from now on."

"That's true," Max said, with a shrug as she stopped in front of Victoria, "She said that you stay away from us. She didn't say anything about us staying away from you. Besides, I'm capable of making my own decisions. I wanted to come and see him. I figured, that I respect him enough that he deserves our last interaction to be something a little less pitiful than before. Right?"

"That's true," Victoria said, "Okay, then. You can head on in."

Max nodded her thanks, then stepped forward and pushed through the door into Nathan's room. As soon as she was through the door, she greeted him, "Nathan Prescott."

"That's me," Nathan said, looking over to her, "What's going on, Max?"

"I don't know," Max shrugged, "I just came here because I figured that you might not want me remembering the way you looked the day of the rescue, too much."

"You thought right," Nathan agreed, "So you came here to see me in a slightly less pathetic state, in the hospital? Kind of fucked that it really is true, that _this_ is less pitiful."

"I wouldn't say it's pitiful," Max said, "It's just something that happened to you. Everybody's life is just a bunch of moments happening to them. It's why I like photography, you know. You can document it all. You can just keep track of absolutely everything that happened. Maybe that sounds dumb, but... I've lost a lot of opportunities in my life. Somehow, it makes me feel better to be able to look back on the moment I lost it, and know I'm still here even with a mistake I made or something that happened to me."

"I guess that's why you do those polaroids, huh?" Nathan asked, "That type of photograph... You make it in one instant, and then it's done. The moment's captured immediately. There's no retaking the photo, or touching it up. There aren't even negatives."

"Yeah, that's right," Max said.

"I always thought it was just because you were a wannabe hipster," Nathan chuckled, "But I guess you did get into Blackwell for a reason. I underestimated you."

"That's lame. I always acknowledged _your_ skills, even when we didn't even get along the tiny bit that we do now," Max pouted as she spoke, "But, yeah, I guess... I'm not very good at first impressions or anything. Anyway. The picture that I took, the other day... It's my least favorite picture I've ever taken, but it's also the most important one I've taken. It was the evidence we needed."

"Yeah," Nathan said, "I'd hate a picture like that, too. A photo taken for evidence doesn't have any artistic value."

"It's not just that," Max said, "That picture is of a moment that never should have happened. It's unsettling. There's so many reasons that photograph shouldn't exist."

"I'm glad that it does, though," Nathan said, "If it didn't, then who knows what would have happened. Everything that's gone done, it's shitty, it's just so fucked up. But, Victoria was right to ask you for help. If you weren't the one taking that picture, if it wasn't Chloe and David who were holding me up, maybe I wouldn't be here now. And you know what, Max? In spite of it all, I don't wish I died."

"Of course you don't," Max said, "You're stronger than that. I respect you."

"I respect you too. Now, anyway," Nathan said, "Not just because you helped to rescue me. Because I was wrong about you as a person. Everything I ever said to you, I meant. And I'm telling the truth now."

"Yeah. I know," Max said, "You never thought I'd amount to anything. I guess it's nice to hear that you've changed your mind, but somehow, it doesn't mean much."

"That's cause you're not like me," Nathan noted, looking away from her, "You don't need approval, to know that you do good work. You won't do any fucking bullshit to get people to like you, or at least to leave you alone. You're just Max Caulfield. That's all you need to be."

"It wasn't just to get people to like you, Nathan," Max said, "That's dumb. I mean, I can't say that I know you well or anything! But, jeeze. Don't act like you weren't afraid. That's a bigger motivator than anything. It's almost why I didn't help. Not spite or anything. Fear."

"But you did help," Nathan said, "So you were less afraid of him than I was."

"Sure I was," Max said, "I never needed to be as afraid of him. I was scared of being killed. You were scared of so much worse. I don't blame you, okay? I think that you're pretty strong. But you know, this will probably be the last time that we talk."

"That's for the best," Nathan said, "But, believe it or not, I wish you all the best in your future endeavors."

"I believe it," Max said, smiling at him, "And likewise to you. You know, maybe we won't speak again. But I'll be taking photos at graduation. So I'll get to hold onto one good moment of yours. Because it will be good. You know that, right?"

"I do," Nathan said.

"Goodbye, Nathan," Max said, turning back toward the door, "Have a good life."

"You too," Nathan said.

And Max left the hospital.

Drops of rain fell on her skin when she stepped outside. It seemed some sort of thunderstorm had rolled in while she was inside. It wasn't a destructive storm, though.

It was washing away the stain from Arcadia Bay.

It was a new beginning for everyone.

And Max went to begin hers.

She went to ask Chloe to be her girlfriend.

Because now that Mark Jefferson was gone, everybody would get their chance at happiness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Polaroid_   
>  _1954 it was a Polaroid_   
>  _55 through 56 were undestroyed_   
>  _Daddy was an anarchist_   
>  _We can't afford_   
>  _Somebody catching wind of this here._   
>  _Polaroid,_   
>  _A portrait of before._   
>  _Born in a flash,_   
>  _Born in a flash,_   
>  _A little piece of the past,_   
>  _Born in a flash._
> 
> ~Fin~


End file.
